More than 50 budding young writers from Maitland have put pen to paper and fingers to the keyboard to show their skills.
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Write Now is a competition that requires children between stage one and stage three (kindergarten to year 6) to take on a topic and creatively express their thoughts in a piece of writing.
Judges from the University of Newcastle have whittled this year’s entries down to six finalists, two from each school stage.
A panel of judges including renowned crime novelist Barry Maitland, University of Newcastle lecturer Suzanne MacQueen, former Friends of Maitland City Library president Jim Tinlin and city librarian Keryl Collard will award winners on August 20.
Ms Collard said this year’s theme was “farming: feeding the world”.
She said entrants were asked to base their work on this topic, but they were free to write any style they chose.
“It’s fairly topical but it’s also fairly broad,” she said. “Some respond in a very factual manner others are completely imaginative.”
Ms Collard said judges would look at each finalist’s writing diary to make sure the work they submitted was their own. Judges would also have a chance to interview the young writers about how their ideas evolved.
“They are generally very confident,” she said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity. What you see is some children entering the competition in consecutive years and that’s really pleasing too.
“It’s a really delightful process.”