“By entering this competition, so many young people who aspire to become writers will now feel empowered to pursue their dreams.”
Mrs Rowley, WGS Head Librarian
Wolverhampton Young Authors' Prize 2025
This year's winners of the Wolverhampton Young Authors' Prize were announced at the Grand Final attended by over 100 finalists from schools across Wolverhampton.
Over 1000 children from Years 5 - 13 from across Wolverhampton entered this year’s Wolverhampton Young Authors’ Prize competition with their original short stories based around the theme of ‘Nature’. 100 finalists from Wolverhampton Grammar School, Christ Church Junior School, SS Peter and Paul Catholic Primary Academy, Goldthorn Park Primary School, Perton Middle School, Bilbrook Middle School, Merridale Primary School, Beacon Hill Academy and St Peter's Collegiate Academy were invited to attend the Grand Final which was held at Wolverhampton Grammar School on Thursday, 13th February.
Award-winning children’s author, Serena Patel, attended the event to share her advice with the budding young authors and to announce the winners, who have had their stories recorded as audiofiles by Serena herself. Serena is the author of the Anisha, Accidental Detective series, which has won the Sainsbury's Children's Book Award, The Week Junior Book Award and the Crimefest Best Novel for Children. Serena strongly believes that all children deserve to feel seen in the stories that they read and that books are an important tool for empathy.
The Final also featured a range of craft and creative activities linked to this year's theme of 'nature', and children each left the event with a floral keepsake with their pledge to protect the environment. The theme of the competition is linked to the work of our school's Bennett Story Garden, which encourages children to connect with nature. The work of the Bennett Story Garden and this year's Wolverhampton Young Authors' Prize has inspired thousands of children from many schools to read and gain an enhanced sense of wellbeing, and we would like to thank the Merchant Taylors' Foundation for their generous grant to fund this work.
The competition, which is in its sixth year, was created by WGS librarians Zoe Rowley and Duncan McAllister to inspire children and young people across the region to read and write for pleasure. WGS Head Librarian Zoe Rowley said,
It was a pleasure to meet all of the finalists at the Wolverhampton Young Authors' Prize Final. As a bestselling local author, Serena Patel was an inspirational choice for this year's guest speaker, as she shared some wonderful advice with the finalists encouraging them to show resilience and determination in order to achieve their dreams. We hope that our finalists left our school with a renewed enthusiasm for reading and creative writing. We also hope that they have many special memories of such a wonderful event.
The winners, selected from the categories, were as follows:
Years 5 and 6:
Winner - Eiva in Year 6 from Merridale Primary School
Runner-up - Ava from Christ Church Junior School
Years 7 and 8
Winner - Maya from Wolverhampton Grammar School
Runner-up - Veer from St Peter's Collegiate Academy
Years 9 - 13
Winner - Mya from Wolverhampton Grammar School
Runner-up - Yasin from St Peter's Collegiate Academy.
Serena Patel kindly recorded the stories of our winners and runners-up so everyone could enjoy their amazing work.
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