If you are looking to take your writing to the next level then the iWISE Olympiad is the perfect platform for you to enter. At iWISE we motivate students to put their best foot forward by continuously refining their work. The Creative Writing Category is open internationally and is aimed at discovering and recognising unsung authors. We encourage and inspire boundless creativity with career-advancing opportunities for real recognition. This contest is designed to increase awareness within the next generation on real-life issues so that they become a part of the solution. The Creative Writing Category is open for entries on poetry, short stories, and short essays.
Creative Writing – Poetry
The iWISE Olympiad, Creative Writing – Poetry category, is aimed at writers who believe in themselves and are confident in their poetry skills. Writers must be between the ages of 10 to 24 years old. The contest is calling on aspiring writers to create a unique poem based on the chosen theme for the year. We look forward to receiving an array of poems from across the world. Poems must not be longer than 30 lines. All written entries must relate to one of the three themes.
Creative Writing – Short Story
The iWISE Olympiad, Creative Writing – Short Story category gives writers the chance to be recognised for their short stories. We are looking for stories under 3000 words. Be careful, it’s harder than it looks! We want refined plots, interesting characters, valuable messages and brilliant prose. Your short story may be science fiction, horror, romance, fantasy, mystery, literary etc.
Creative Writing – Short Essay
What is an essay? An essay is a short piece of academic writing addressing a defined research question. The structure of essay consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion.
The iWISE Olympiad, Creative Writing – Short Essay category is an opportunity for writers to stimulate their creativity and test their essay writing skills. The purpose of this contest is for writers to create something worthy of international recognition. The short essay should not be a research paper. While active research is an important criterion for this category, your research should be presented in a manner that supports your opinion on the given theme. In other words your essay should be based on your own personal opinion that you formulated after doing extensive research, only use your research to support your opinion.
– Participants are allowed to submit more than one entry per category for the national round, but only one qualified entry can be re-submitted for the Global Round.
– All entries must be titled in English.
– Entries must be marked either as poetry, short story, or short essay.
– Participants cannot submit the same entry more than once.
– The language of entry must be in English.
– Participants must submit both word and pdf documents of their entries.
– A short essay must not be a critical essay e.g. a critical essay is defined as “as essay that aims to analyse, interpret, or evaluate a text or any other media”.
– This entry can only be prepared and submitted by one participant.
– A short story entry should be 3000 words or less.
– A short essay entry should be 1500 words or less.
– A poetry entry should be no longer than 30 lines or no longer than 3 pages, whichever comes first.
– The font for all creative writing categories is Times New Roman, with a font size of 12.
– All entries will be regarded as final once submitted; participants will not be allowed to make changes after submission.
– Entry should be on A4 size paper.
– Each entry must have a cover page including the following details of the participant; full name, name of their country, date of birth, age category and title of their entry.
– All entries must be typed: no hand-written entry will be accepted.
– There must be a page number on each page of the entry.
– The participant’s full name and country’s name must be written on the top of each page as a header.
– Judges have the right to disqualify any entry on the basis of discriminatory or offensive content pertaining to race, sex, religion, social class, disability, age, gender, sexual orientation or natural origin.
- Click on the Registration Tab
- Select one of the Virtual Rounds
- Fill in your details.
- Fill in your selected category details on the corresponding form.
- Select your available time for the Judging process.
- Submit your zoom judging session.
- Proceed to payment.
- Complete your submission.
Judging will be done at the discretion of the iWISE Olympiad Committee. All submissions will be judged by a panel selected by the iWISE Olympiad Organization. The Judges will score each criterion on a scale of 0-5, with zero being the lowest and 5 being the highest rank.
Judges will look for entries in each age category which illustrates one or more of the following: Clarity and originality of expression, creativity, artistic quality and relevance to the theme, significance and originality of thought, characters; presentation and development, structure, organization, convention etc. The judge will consider the extent to which the writing exhibits effective control of tone, diction, parallelism, balance, inversion, sentence length and also how the entry effectively demonstrates a developed, focused and concluded discussion of ideas and an establishment and maintenance of a controlling idea.
Requirements for Virtual Finals:
- Written Abstract/Summary of poetry/short story/short essay.
- All Creative Writing Pieces must be in line with the iWISE theme of the year.
- The 2024 themes are:
Coming of age
Dreamscapes Explored
Art in Motion
- Participants only need to pick one theme for their submission.
- Work must be saved as a PDF document that will be sent to judges via Zoom Chat
- Individual submission only
Requirements for Global Finals:
- All Creative Writing Pieces must be in line with the iWISE theme of the year.
- The 2024 themes are:
Coming of age
Dreamscapes Explored
Art in Motion
- Participants only need to pick one theme for their submission.
Individual submission only
