Awesome Authors 2023 is on!

The Ottawa Public Library’s Awesome Authors Youth Writing Contest is back! Young writers of the nation’s capital, get to work on your poems, short stories, and comics. You could win publication, glory, cold hard cash!

The contest opened on January 10th and it closes on February 24th. Learn all the details from the Awesome Authors page on the OPL website.

I’ll be judging English fiction in the 9-12 age category again this year — and I want to read your story!

Other judges this year are Apollo the Child; Amelinda Bérubé; Pierre-Luc Bélanger; and Éric Péladeau. (Yes, it’s the same awesome crew as last year — why mess with a good thing?) Check everyone out on the Ottawa Public Library’s YouTube channel.

All judges are offering virtual or in-person writing workshops to help you get started, from January 21st through February 11th. Find the full schedule and registration links on the OPL Awesome Authors page.

My short story workshop will be held at 10:30am on Saturday, January 28th at the Blackburn Hamlet branch — in person, hurrah! I hope you can make it.

The Awesome Authors contest is open to all Ottawa youth aged 9-18 who are still in school, and even to the odd non-resident with an Ottawa Public Library card. Entries are judged in two age categories (9-12 and 13-18), two languages (English and French) and three genres (poem, short story, comic). Ambitious writers can submit one (but only one!) of everything. Go wild!

The contest deadline is February 24th, 2023. Winners will be announced in the spring.

Be sure to read all the rules before submitting. (Don’t go over the 1000-word limit.) And check out the winning pieces from past years anthologized in Pot-pourri, published annually by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association.

Good luck!