THE TELLING ROOM'S 2024 STATEWIDE WRITING CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED

The Telling Room’s annual creative Writing Contest invites youth from all over Maine, ages 6 - 18, to show off their writing. A panel of professional writers and youth selects one grand prize winner, a winner from each of Maine’s participating 16 counties, and submissions are considered for publication in The Telling Room’s annual anthology. If you have any questions on the submission process, please email Bridget at: bridget@tellingroom.org.

Submissions for this year’s contest are now closed. Check back in October of 2024 for information on the next contest opening up.

We look for writing with...

• An impactful message

• Creativity and originality that stand out

• A structure that supports the clarity of its message

• A strong voice

• Elements of writing (such as setting, characters, or figurative language) that support its message

  Submission Guidelines

• Entrants must live in Maine.

• Entrants must be between the ages of 6 and 18.

• All forms of creative writing are considered, including: poetry, prose, fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting, playwriting, and songwriting.

• All forms of poetry are welcome, but poems must be 40 lines or fewer.

• Fiction and nonfiction prose should be 1500 words or fewer.

• Youth may submit up to 2 different pieces of writing.

• Submitting to our contest constitutes an agreement to be considered for publication in our annual anthology.

• This statewide contest runs from mid-October through November each year. If we do not receive your submission in this time span, it will not be considered. 

 PRIZES

• The Grand Prize Winner will receive a $250 award, will be published in our spring anthology, and may be published in other publications and media.

• One County Winner will be selected from each of Maine’s 16 counties. Each County Winner will receive a $50 award, will be published in our spring anthology, and may be published in other publications and media.

Congratulations to our 2024 Writing Contest Winner, Lily Jessen!

Never
by Lily Jessen

There are only three places 

where you can truly be freed of the trials of existing:

before, after, and never, 

which is a conundrum of sorts, for me.

I do not want to die, but

I do not think I want to turn fifteen 

either. I want to be like a Lost Boy, 

skipping, barefoot, through the forests of forever, crying

to the canopy and the crows 

a cacophony of defiant eternity that echoes

across the ocean, the divide,

to creep into the mainland

and hide in fairytales and lullabies—

a protest against what seems to be 

the very fundamental purpose of childhood: 

to grow up. 

People keep asking me: Are you going to take drivers ed?

I want to answer that I have no desire to drive, I want to fly 

on the wings of fairy dust, and land somewhere 

green and lush and shimmering

existing only in the whispers before bed

where I can finally feel found. 

And wait a minute, where are all the lost girls, and 

what tore them away from the second star to the right?

They are drawn, pulled to become mothers, and may only sit by the window

growing old waiting for either death 

or Peter Pan to sweep them away— whichever comes first.

This is a poem for them, a hope that

their island will be a time capsule of the present,

without memory, only movement 

through the fields and waters 

on the toes of children, never to return.

County Winners

To recognize the wide geographic participation in this year’s contest, The Telling Room honored one writer from each of Maine’s participating counties as a county winner, in addition to the grand prize winner. Each county winner will also be published in The Telling Room’s upcoming anthology, and receive a cash prize of $50. Read on below to celebrate this exceptional writing from across Maine, and congratulations to these authors!