Creative Writing Competition
An Update on Beyond Words 2026
We have had to make the tough decision not to run the Beyond Words Creative Writing Competition in 2026. While we are disappointed that the competition will not be moving forward this year, we remain incredibly proud of the community of young writers we have built together over the past three years.
Beyond Words was created to celebrate Australia’s most passionate young storytellers and to provide a platform for unique ideas and compelling characters. We have been consistently inspired by the creativity and dedication shown by the primary and high school students who have participated in 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Although the competition is on hiatus, we want to encourage all young writers to continue honing their craft. One of our primary goals was to give students the confidence to share their work with the world, and we hope you will continue to seek out new opportunities and writing platforms to showcase your talent.
Thank you to the students, parents, and teachers who have supported this initiative. We wish you all the very best with your future writing endeavors and look forward to seeing where your imaginations take you.
The Team at Dymocks Beyond Words
Prize pool
High School Prize Pool
$3000
Winner
$1000
Runner Up
$500
Shortlist (8 awarded)
Primary School Prize Pool
$2000
Winner
$1000
Runner Up
$500
Shortlist (8 awarded)
Special Category Prizes
Primary & Highschool
$1000
Regional Australia Winner
Sponsored by Hachette Australia
$1000
Greater Western Sydney Winner
$1000
EAL/D Winner
$1000
First Nations Winner
Sponsored by WTW
$1000
LGBTQIA+
Sponsored by WTW
NOTE: With the exception of the Winner and Runner Up prizes, all prizes are paid in Visa gift cards. These can be used as-is or converted to cash by prizewinners.
Long List Prizes
All longlisted students will also be entered into the 2025 Dymocks Beyond Words Longlist Book!
Hachette book Prize Pack!
Each student in the longlist will receive a Middle Grade or Young Adult book pack sponsored by Hachette.
COMPETITION DETAILS
All primary and secondary school students across Australia are able to enter!
Your story must be between 500 and 1500 words.
Entries over the word limit will be disqualified.
The competition is open theme.
This means that your story can be about anything you want. It can also be written in any genre.
Unfortunately not. As this is a short story competition, all entries must be written in prose, not verse.
Poetry might be used as an element of the story, but the majority of the story must be written in prose. Entries written entirely in verse will be disqualified.
No – every entrant may only submit one story. If you submit multiple entries, the most recently submitted entry will be accepted and all others will be disqualified.
Stories are being judged on two key things:
CRAFT: Is your story well written and descriptive? Have you shown a strong command of language, structure, and vocabulary? Is it clear that you understand what key elements go into making a good story?
IDEA: How original and unique is your idea? Has your story got something interesting to share? Does it affect the reader emotionally? Does your story grab the reader and make them want to read more?
We encourage all students to enter the competition! We are judging based on ideas and passion for storytelling just as heavily as on technical craft and command of language.
No – you must submit a new story this year. All longlisted entries will be cross-checked against last year’s entry pool to ensure that they are new submissions.
- To enter the REGIONAL prize your home address must not be within a location classified as MM1 (major cities) in the Modified Monash Model. You can search locations at the Department of Health.
- To enter the GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY PRIZE your home address must be within the Greater Western Sydney region as defined by the NSW Department of Planning Metropolitan Strategy.
- To enter the EAL/D prize you must speak English as an additional language or dialect; it should not be your first language. You may be interviewed to discuss what winning this prize means to you.
- To enter the FIRST NATIONS prize you must be an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander student and be accepted by your First Nations community as a member of that community. You may be interviewed to discuss what winning this prize means to you.
- To enter the LGBTQIA+ prize you must identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Please be aware that if you win this category your full name will be displayed publicly as prizewinner on the website. You may also be interviewed to discuss what winning this prize means to you.
Due to the number of entries we receive, we cannot provide personalised feedback on every entry.
There is an option to add PAID FEEDBACK when you submit your story. With this option you will receive personalised feedback on your story which will be sent to you at the same time the longlist is announced.
Choosing to add paid feedback does not affect your story’s progress in the competition; it is an entirely optional add on.
You may NOT use Generative AI / Large Language Models to write your story. This includes using it to generate ideas, or to compose any parts of the story’s content.
We are looking for your ideas told in your own words. Using Gen AI goes against the spirit of the competition. Beyond Words is not judged on spelling or grammar, so there is no need to use AI to assist even with the editing of your story. We are looking for authentic stories told by real humans.
If we discover AI was used in the composition of a story that story will be disqualified from the competition.
JUDGING PANEL
Primary School Prize: Jackie French
Jackie French AM is the author of more books than she wants to count, with over a hundred awards in Australia and overseas for historical fiction like Tigg and the Bushranger Bandicoot and picture books like Diary of a Wombat. She’s been the 2014-2015 Australian Children’s Laureate, and 2015 Senior Australian of the year, with the motto ‘A book can change a child’s life – a book can change the world.’ But she also believes that books are also fun, a portable universe you can carry in your bag, and the best way to travel anywhere or any when, to dance with dinosaurs or surf tsunamis, safe within the covers.
High School Prize: Will Kostakis
Will Kostakis is an award-winning author for young adults. He’s been at it fifteen years, but his mum insists it’s just a phase and any day now, he’ll pursue a real career. He signed his first book deal in high school. Loathing Lola was released when he was just nineteen. His contemporary novels, The First Third and The Sidekicks, warmed (then broke) hearts the world over. His first foray into fantasy, the Monuments duology, saw teenagers accidentally killing gods hidden under different Aussie high schools, absorbing their powers, and wrestling with what it means to be gods. We Could Be Something is his latest novel. It’s a humorous yet heart-rending look at family, fame and falling in love.
Shortlist Prize: Josephine Sarvaas
Josephine is a trained teacher qualified in English, history and TESOL, who graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours. She has been working in private tutoring since 2014 and has nine years’ experience teaching students from kindergarten up to the HSC. She is passionate about helping all students gain confidence in their learning, and believes English is a subject area where all students can be empowered to develop their self-expression. Josephine is also a short story writer whose work has been published in magazines and anthologies. She won first place in NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Competition and The Academy of Teachers’ ‘Stories Out of School’ Competition, and was runner up in the 2022 Best Australian Yarn, Australia’s biggest short story contest. Her work has been long-listed for the Grindstone International Novel Prize and the Mslexia Novel Competition.
LGBTQIA+ Prize: Erin Gough
Greater Western Sydney Prize: Ally Burnham
EAL/D Prize: Khaled Damag
First Nations Prize: Luke Patterson
Luke Patterson is a Gamilaroi poet, musician and educator living on Gadigal lands. His poetry appears in Cordite Poetry Review, Plumwood Mountain, Rabbit, Red Room and The Suburban Review. He has featured in the anthologies Active Aesthetics, Firefront: first nation’s poetry and power today, and Nangamay Mana Djurali: First Nations LGBTQI+ Poetry. Luke’s research and creative pursuits are grounded in extensive work with First Nations and other community-based organisations across Australia.
Regional Prize: Bonni Que
Bonni is the Story Leader at The Story Island Project, running dynamic in-school storytelling workshops in areas of need around Hobart. She has a background in creative arts and health, with a strong focus on social justice and community development programs. As well as maintaining her own creative practice in writing, music and visual art, Bonni has experience working as an arts facilitator within a range of diverse environments and demographics both across Australia and internationally. She is a strong believer in the power of creative expression as a means of nurturing imagination and cultivating social, cognitive and emotional development.
EAL/D Prize: Khaled Damag
Khaled is a writer and skilled bilingual communicator. He is a Board Member of The Story Island Project—a Hobart-based not-for-profit organisation that nurtures the creativity and writing skills of young Tasmanians—and has served on Amnesty International Australia’s Youth Advisory Group. A graduate of the University of Tasmania (with a Business degree majoring in Finance and Business Economics), Khaled is currently a research and policy officer at RACT, working on advocacy projects in areas such as road safety, mobility and sustainability.
Greater Western Sydney Prize: Ally Burnham
Alexandria (Ally) Burnham is an AWGIE award-winning screenwriter and novelist. She is best known for her feature film Unsound (2020, Apple) and Metropius, a multi-media story world told across animation, comic books and board games. Her debut novel, Swallow, is slated for release November 2025. www.allyburnham.com
LGBTQIA+ Prize: Gary Lonesborough
Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin man, who grew up on the Far South Coast of NSW as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. Gary was always writing as a child, and continued his creative journey when he moved to Sydney to study at film school. Gary has experience working in youth work, Aboriginal health, child protection, the disability sector (including experience working in the youth justice system) and the film industry, including working on the feature film adaptation of Jasper Jones. His debut YA novel, The Boy from the Mish, won the Booktopia FAB Debut Book Awards and the Ena Noel Award and was shortlisted for the CBCA Awards, the QLD Literary Awards, the Victorian
Premier’s Literary Awards, the Indie Book Awards, the Adelaide Festival Awards, the NSW Premier’s Awards and was selected as a White Raven. It was published in the US in 2022 under the title Ready When You Are. His second novel, We Didn’t Think It Through, was published in 2023.
LGBTQIA+ Prize: Gary Lonesborough
Originally from Ballarat, Tobias worked for ten years as a performer, touring Australia and New Zealand with musicals such as Mary Poppins, CATS, and Guys and Dolls. He now resides in New York City with his husband, Daniel, and their Cavoodle, Ollie.
In 2019, Tobias edited and published Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories and co-wrote the cabaret show Siblingship. His debut novel, Anything But Fine, was awarded the Australian Association of Family Therapy’s Book Award for Older Readers, was shortlisted for ABIA Book of the Year for Older Readers, was named one of Better Reading’s Top 50 Kids Books, and was included on Bank Street College of Education’s list of Best Children’s Books of the Year (US).
Tobias is a passionate member of the #LoveOzYA and LGBTQ+ communities, and he currently works full-time in book marketing.
PARTNERS & SPONSORS
