The Solstice Nature Prize for Young Writers 2025

The Solstice Nature Prize for Young Writers 2025 is officially open for entries!

This year, Writing East Midlands is seeking 500-word short stories, 500-word blogs or 40-line poems from young writers across the UK—all on the theme of nature, the environment and issues related to climate change!

The Solstice creative writing competition is open to writers aged 7-25, with four age categories to enter (7-11, 12-14, 15-17) and prizes on offer for the first-place winner and five highly commended entries in each category. 

Prizes include: £100, goody bags and publication in our online anthology.

Writing East Midlands is delighted to announce the 2025 judge of the Solstice Nature Prize for Writers: Gill Lewis. Gill is the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of children’s nature-themed novels such as Sky Hawk, Sky Dancer, White Dolphin and A Story Like the Wind. Her latest book, Moon Flight, was launched in March 2023 and recently won Waterstones’ Book of the Month. You can find out more about Gill Lewis here.

Solstice is a stellar opportunity for young writers to develop their skillset as part of a fun summer project or a back-to-school lesson plan to prep them for future exams. Through this creative writing competition, we hope to inspire and encourage young people to really consider and make connections with their natural environment.

The Solstice Nature Prize for Young Writers is FREE to enter. The deadline is 31st October 2025 at 11.59 pm.

To enter an individual young writer’s work, please visit the Solstice webpage on our website here: https://writingeastmidlands.co.uk/young-writers-groups/solstice-writing-prize/