The essay portion of the contest has writing prompts this year. Teens must choose from among the writing prompts for the essay portion of the contest. The prompts are located below and at the writing contest link.

Prompt one: How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect you? Was it a positive or negative experience or both? What did you learn about yourself as a result?

Prompt two: When have you seen yourself and your life reflected in a book or other media? Write about that experience and why it was important.

Prompt three: Write about an experience that made you into the person you are today. Be sure to talk about who you were before this event, and how you have changed since.

There are no prompts for the poetry and short story portions of the contest.

Three winning entries will be chosen from each category and published in our 2022 Write On magazine which is due to be published later next year. In addition to being published, each of the winners will receive a $25 gift card.

Not only that, but thanks to a grant from the Horror Writers Association (https://horror.org/), each winner will receive a copy of the book Find Your Voice: A Guided Journal for Writing Your Truth by Angie Thomas (author of The Hate U Give) and Don’t Turn Out the Lights: A Tribute to Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, edited by Jonathan Maberry!

The 2021 Write On! Magazine is available online! This magazine features the winners of the library’s 2020 teen writing contest. It also features staff picks photos that were submitted during previous teen photo contests. You can see it all at https://solanolibrary.com/write-on-solano-county-library-teen-writing-photography-2021-magazine/.