Writing Contests Past and Present - The 2026 Writing Contest Is Open!
From now to October 21, 2026 we are running our fourth writing contest. Canadian children in grades 1-6 can submit a story for a chance to be published! The word counts for each grade are as follows:
|
Grades |
Word Count |
|
1 – 2 |
50-100 |
|
3 – 4 |
100-200 |
|
5 – 6 |
200-350 |
The stories are judged on spelling, grammar, and creativity. The authors of the top three stories in each category receive a cash prize.
Click here for more details and to submit your story.
Our first contest, from 2018-2019, had 173 submissions. The number of fantastic submissions led to the creation of One Story a Day by Kids for Kids, where we published the top 10 stories from each age group plus some international features.
In 2022 we wrapped up our second contest with 350+ submissions, doubling the first one! Two of the winners were even featured in their local newspapers.
We thought 350 was a lot, but the number of submissions we received in 2024 blew us away: 557 stories total. That’s about three times how many we received in our first contest!
It’s encouraging to see so many kids writing. What’s really interesting is noticing the common themes among submissions each year. In 2019, many of the stories were about animals or family. Nature, the environment, and magic were the topics of several submissions in 2022. The importance of friendship shared the spotlight with stories about bullying in the 2024 submissions.
We are so proud of everyone who participated in the past and we can’t wait to see what happens this year!