The First Page student writing challenge is open for submissions!
The First Page student writing challenge asks students to imagine what the world will be like in 150 years
The First Page student writing challenge is now open for submissions! Enter online by clicking the link below:
The challenge will be accepting submissions until February 28, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Finalists from each category will be selected by a team of CBC readers. Finalists will be notified by email in the spring of 2025. The exact timing will depend on the number of submissions received.
The challenge tasks young writers with imagining how current world issues and trends will evolve in the next century.
How will the world leaders of today impact the world of tomorrow? Who will be the biggest name in pop culture in the future? How will climate change impact the protagonist's life?
The judge of the 2025 challenge will be bestselling YA author S.K. Ali.
Ali is mostly known for her thoughtful coming-of-age and romantic YA literature like Saints and Misfits, Love from A to Z, and Love from Mecca to Medina.
She has also ventured into children's books with her picture book The Proudest Blue and the middle-grade anthology she co-edited, Once Upon an Eid which won the Middle East Book Honor Award in 2020.
Ali's latest novel explores a different genre to everything she has done before — dystopian science fiction. In Fledgling: The Keeper's Records of Revolution, the first of a YA duology, two earths are on the brink of self destruction.
Winners will receive...
- A one-year subscription to OwlCrate, which sends fresh boxes of books to young readers across Canada on a monthly basis.
- 50 free YA books for their school library
You can read the complete rules and regulations here.
Last year's winners were Toronto's Anya Thadani in the Grades 7 to 9 category for Fixed and Kleefeld, Man's Hayley Peters in the Grades 10 to 12 for Forbidden Realities.
Download posters for your classrooms: in colour, black and white, or mobile-friendly version
WHAT YOU CAN WRITE: Your entry can be 300-400 words in length. The story could be from any literary genre, from mystery or thriller to literary fiction, from adventure or romance to satire or science fiction. Your entry also needs a title, but the title is not included in the word limit. Your entry can be written in any genre.
WHO CAN ENTER: This contest is open to all Canadian residents who are full-time students enrolled in Grades 7 to 12. Entries will be judged in two age categories: Grades 7 to 9 and Grades 10 to 12.
PRIZES: The winner of each category will receive a one-year subscription to OwlCrate, which delivers monthly boxes of books and literary-related goodies. The school library of each winner will also receive a donation of 50 books.
WHEN YOU CAN SUBMIT: Feb. 1 to 28, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
TEACHER GUIDES: Visit Curio.ca for discussion questions and writing tips from Canadian writers, like Cory Doctorow, Linwood Barclay, Fonda Lee, Cherie Dimaline, Erin Bow, Katherena Vermette and M.G. Vassanji.
HAVE QUESTIONS? Email us at cbcbooks@cbc.ca.
If you're interested in other writing prizes, check out:
- The CBC Literary Prizes
- The 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize — OPEN NOW
- The CBC Poetry Prize — Open in April
- The CBC Short Story Prize — Open in September
