ELMHURST — Young writers living and going to school in Queens can enter their poems and prose in a contest sponsored by an Elmhurst-based literary journal.
Newtown Literary’s Queens Young Authors & Poets contest is open for students from the third through 12th grades, who either live or go to school in the borough.
Editor Tim Fredrick said the group was inspired to hold the contest after reading adult entries for the journal.
“A lot of people who submitted were people who had grown up here, and clearly had been writing their entire lives,” he said, adding that many people included the names of their elementary and middle schools in their biographies.
“The students in Queens schools now will be the emerging writers a couple of years from now.”
The deadline to submit is Dec. 20, and the entries will be read by 18 local Queens writers who have been published in previous issues of the journal.
The winners will be selected in the poetry and prose categories, as well as in three age groups, and announced in March.
Their work will be published in the spring/summer 2014 issue of Newtown Literary, and the writers will also have the chance to read their winning entries at an awards ceremony in June.
The Newtown Literary published the first issue of its journal last December, and the third edition will come out next week, Fredrick said.
It will be available online as well as at the Astoria Bookstore.
Giving school kids the chance to show off their work goes along with their mission to help the borough’s emerging writers, he said.
“We definitely try to give a venue to encourage the Queens kids to write,” he said.
The deadline to submit is Dec. 20, and is open for students who either live or work in Queens. For more information, visit their website.
