This event is now closed but our 2026 competition will be announced in the New Year.
2025 NBF WRITING COMPETITION: UNLEASH YOUR WILD IMAGINATION!
Get ready to let your creativity soar at the 2025 NBF Writing Competition, where we’re on a mission to spotlight the brightest young writing stars! Our festival thrives on celebrating fresh talent, and this year, we’re thrilled to launch a FREE TO ENTER competition with the theme: ‘NATURE’!
Whether you’re inspired by rolling oceans, whispering forests, or the untamed beauty of the world around you, we want YOUR unique take on “Nature” in a dazzling short story!
Two Categories:
– Secondary Students: Craft a tale in up to 500 words
– Primary Students: Spin a story in up to 500 words
Unleash your voice in poetry or prose, and write in English, Scots, or Gaelic—we’re here for it all!
Prizes:
Get 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in your category and you’ll win a prize (stay tuned for the big prize reveal)!
How to Enter
Entry is open from now until the 5th July 2025. To enter, just send your entry as a PDF or Google Doc to nbfinverness@gmail.com with the subject ‘NBF Writing Competition 2025’ and the category either ‘Secondary’ or ‘Primary’.
Be sure to check the T’s&C’s below before sending your work and good luck to everyone!
Terms and Conditions
1 Entries should be on the theme ‘Nature’
2 Work submitted should be prose or poetry only – no A.I entries please
3 Entrants should be persons normally living in the Highlands or Moray only.
4 All entries must be made electronically, by email to nbfinverness@gmail.com
5 Please submit your work as a PDF or Google Doc.
6 Only one entry per person
7 Submissions from under-16s should be submitted by either a guardian or a teacher. School submissions should also include the child’s name, school name, school year group, and school teacher’s name.
8 Deadline for entries is Midnight 5th July 2025, with winners being announced sometime before the festival.
9 All results are published on the NBF website. Winners will be notified through the originating email address.
10 Winners will be judged by NBF committee members.
11 The judges’ decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into.
12 No feedback will be available.
13 Copyright of any NBF competition entry remains with the author. Still, NBF reserves the unrestricted right to publish the winning and runner-up entries on its website and in any related material for PR purposes.
14 Entries should be in English (or English dialect), Scots or Gaelic and should not have been published or accepted for publication elsewhere.
15 Entries that have won or are under consideration in other fiction competitions are not eligible.
16 Entries must not contain defamatory, obscene, offensive, or any other unsuitable material; NBF reserves the right to disqualify entries containing such matter. Entries should be suitable for reading at NBF 2025 for audiences of all ages.
17 Entries should be original works and should not be a translations of another author’s work or infringe on the rights of any other party.
18 NBF accepts no responsibility if entrants ignore these terms and conditions and agrees to indemnify NBF against any claim by any third party from any breach of these terms and conditions.
19 Data gathered via the competition shall only be used for the purpose of the competition and shall be deleted 28 days after the 2025 festival.
We welcome entries from all genders and nationalities who normally live in the Highlands or Moray.
Get in Touch
Contact us about any of our events, or about joining or supporting our organisation. We welcome all enquiries and endeavour to respond quickly.
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