Young People's Mystery Short Story Writing Competition 2025

The Agatha Christie Festival is joining forces with Libraries Unlimited, Literature Works and Torre Abbey to bring you The Agatha Christie Festival Young People’s Mystery Short Story Writing Competition. Together, we are inviting aspiring young writers aged between 8 and 18 years of age, who live or go to school or college in Devon or Torbay, to write a short story involving a mystery and enter it into our competition to discover the most talented mystery authors of the future. There are great prizes and recognition to be won.

It’s free to enter. There are two entry categories: Category One for young people aged 8 to 13 years of age; Category Two for those aged 14-18 years of age. Your challenge is to compose a short story of no more than 1,000 words involving a mystery of some kind and to submit your entry to us online. You can find the entry form and further details on how to send us your story by following this link: click here

Young writers are welcome to submit their stories individually or through supervised classwork.

The closing date for receipt of entries is Friday, 8th August 2025.

The First Placed Winner in either category will win an Apple iPad Mini™. There are exciting prizes to be won too for those placed second and third in each category from HarperCollins UK and Laurence King Publishing.

Winners will receive their prizes at a ceremony in person during the Agatha Christie Festival which takes place at venues across the English Riviera 13th - 21st September 2025