To mark World Book Day, Wimbledon BookFest has launched its annual Young Writers’ Competition for school students aged 4-19. This year’s theme is ‘The Tree’, and entrants are invited to submit their poems and stories through their teachers and schools at their website.  

Winners will have their work published in an anthology and be invited to a prize-giving event at Wimbledon BookFest in September.  

Last year’s Young Writers’ Competition received shortlisted entries from 72 schools across London and Surrey. The overall winner was Raynes Park High School student Jonathan Esenga (above).  

His powerful poem, My Name is 2020, was inspired by world events during the pandemic, and was read by best-selling author and performance poet Sophia Thakur at a prize-giving event in September 2021.  

You can read Jonathan’s powerful entry here. 

Wimbledon BookFest celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2022. It was one of the few festivals to continue to deliver live, in-person festivals throughout the pandemic, reaching audiences of 38,000 last year including many school audiences.  

To date, Wimbledon BookFest has worked with 100 schools in south London and Surrey across its projects, and last year gave 7,300 books to children in London through its partnerships with school, libraries, publishers, and booksellers.  

This week, it provided copies of Marcus Rashford’s book You Are Champion: How to Be the Best You Can Be to all 53 state schools in the London borough of Merton.

Click here for more information about Wimbledon BookFest’s planned events this year.