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The Pen to Print Awards 2024


The 2024 Pen to Print Competition Winners Announced

The 2024 Pen to Print writing competition winners were announced on Thursday 18 July 2024 at Barking Learning Centre.

All of the winners received a trophy and a tablet PC. The winner of the Audio Play competition will get their play fully produced & recorded by our partner Alternative Stories and we will make that available when it is ready.

The Book Challengers, after a year of mentoring, have each had their novel published and have been gifted free copies of their book, so they are all winners! You can buy all but one book now, we hope to have the winning book released soon.

Please CLICK the titles to read the full pieces or to buy a Book Challenger book.

This year we have also included some audio recordings provided by Alternative Stories, played at our Awards.

And the winners are …

The Book Challenge 2023/24

 

The Winner of the Book Challenge 2023/24

The Toffee Man And The Kingdom Of Ends
by
Linda Quinn

Runner-Up

The Poster
by
James Marshall


Runner-Up

Flat-Coat
by
Amanda Wynne



Finalist

Not My Little Joseph
by
Danny Fenn

Finalist

The Lost Cabbage
by
Filippo Rossi



Pen to Print Speech and Drama Festival 2024

Poem Winner and
Overall Speech & Drama Festival Winner

Into the Light
by
Ella



Monologue Winner

I Hate Reading
by
Donna Rose

The Michael Feld Writing Competition for Young People 2024

Key Stage 2 Winner
and
Overall Winner of the Michael Feld Memorial Salver

Smile
by
Ayisha



Poem Winner and
Overall Speech & Drama Festival Winner

Into the Light
by
Ella







The Pen to Print Short Story Competition 2024

Winner

Through A Glass
by
Michael Flavin




Runner-Up

Always Keep Between The Lines
by
Sean Webster

Runner-Up

Our Relationship Reboot
by
Chris Cottom

The Pen to Print Poetry Competition 2024

Winner

Grandmother As Flamingo
by
Christian Ward




Runner-Up

Words Hurt
by
Jemma Baston-Williams







Runner-Up

Chemotherapy
by
Anne Welsh




The Pen to Print Audio Play Competition 2024 Sponsored by Alternative Stories

Winner

The Earth Serenades
by
Emma Griffiths




The Pen to Print Essay Competition 2024


Winner

The Chicago Way
by
Andy Horton




The Pen to Print Barking and Dagenham Staff Competition 2024

Winner

My Garden July 1970
Jill Gallagher




If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

Toni Morrison

One should begin any work of fiction with the longest, most convoluted sentence imaginable, then try to beat that record.

Charles Dickens

Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the readers.

Stephen King

You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.

Octavia E.Butler

Writing is a great comfort to people like me, who are unsure of themselves and have trouble expressing themselves properly.

Agatha Christie

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

Louis L’Amour

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.

James Thurber

Creativity is contagious, pass it on.

Albert Einstein

To write successfully, one requires only a sharp pencil, a piece of paper and a hot cup of tea.

Agatha Christie

Poetry is when an emotion has found it’s thought, and the thought has found words.

Robert Frost

Writing lets you break boundaries because you can go anywhere you wish. The voice in my stories is sometimes authentic, sometimes it is foreign. Sometimes it is old. Sometimes it is new. Sometimes my writing is Muslim, other times it is Sikh and many times, it is no one’s religion because as long as I am telling the story, I am in control. I am whoever I want to be.

Farzana Hakim, Book Challenge Author