Awesome Authors is on!

The Ottawa Public Library’s Awesome Authors Youth Writing Contest is back! Young writer, get ready to write your best poem, short story, or comic ever. The Ottawa Public Library is inviting you to share your talent with the world, and you could win cash prizes and publication. 

Learn all the details from the Awesome Authors page on the OPL website.

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

Other judges back for another year are Apollo the Child; Amelinda Bérubé; Karine Perron; and Éric Péladeau. All judges are offering virtual writing workshops over the next month to help you get started.

Here’s the workshop schedule from the library website. Click on the links to register.

For ages 9-12:

January 231:30 PM Short Story Writing Workshop with author Catherine Austen3:30 PM Poetry Workshop with Spoken Word Artist Apollo The ChildJanuary 301:30 PM Atelier d’écriture : Comment devenir un super bédéiste with author and illustrator Éric Péladeau15 h 30 Atelier d’écriture : Atelier d’écriture : Comment devenir un(e) super auteure with author Karine PerronFebruary 61:30 PM How to Become an Awesome Comic Book Writer with author and illustrator Éric Péladeau

For ages 13-17:

January 301:30 PM Atelier d’écriture : Comment devenir un super bédéiste with author and illustrator Éric PéladeauFebruary 61:30 PM How to Become an Awesome Comic Book Writer with author and illustrator Éric Péladeau3:30 PM Short Story Writing Workshop with author Amelinda BérubéFebruary 131:30 PM Atelier d’écriture : Comment devenir un(e) super auteur(e) with author Karine Perron3:30 PM Poetry Workshop with Spoken Word Artist Apollo The Child

If you are a budding student author in Ottawa, sign up for a virtual workshop to get your creative juices flowing, then develop your work into a poem or story or graphic narrative — or all three — to submit to the contest before February 26th.

Find out all the rules and details on the OPL website.

And be sure to check out the winning pieces from past years anthologized in Pot-pourri, published annually by the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association. There are so many talented young writers featured in those pages. (But there’s never enough room for all the great entries received every year.)

Good luck!