Real history contains some of the most fanciful, exciting, worrying and incredible stories – learning about the past can open our eyes to how people have interacted with the world and each other for centuries. It is not surprising that alongside the real history most cultures and traditions have a...

Entries to the 2024 competition are now closed.  Each year we are so impressed by the ever increasing number and standard of entries we receive around such a wide range of historical periods and settings. You can take a look at some of last year’s winning entries here. Unleash the creativity...

Being inspired by stories of the past to tell stories for today has kept people entertained for hundreds of years. Take a look at the shelves in any bookshop and there will be plenty of historical fiction. That is why we believe in starting them young at the HA, and...

The HA's writing competition for children aged 10-19 years After another year of high-quality fiction writing from our young people, we are pleased to announce that the winners in all of the categories are: School Years 5-6: Eloise Burt – The HMS Titanic. Old Priory Junior Academy, Plymouth Hannah Tan...

This writing competition seeks to encourage young people to express their creative sides alongside a strong understanding of a historical period, event or theme. This year despite restrictions, further lockdowns and uncertainty the number and quality of entries remained high, as well as being imaginative, exciting, well researched and a...

This has been one of our best years for entries ever!  With children stuck at home needing a little extra something to do we decided to extend the competition to accommodate home learning, as well as a new age category for pupils in years 10-13. We received well over a...

This year we had a wonderful response, with more entries than ever before from secondary schools. There was also an excellent response from primary schools and in both categories entries came from International schools as well as schools in the UK – so a BIG WELL DONE to everyone who...

Each year we offer young people the chance to be rewarded for their own creativity. The Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition encourages young people to write their own fiction within a historical setting of their choice.   The competition helps them to develop knowledge of a specific time period and...

Each year we offer young people the chance to be rewarded for their own creativity. The Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition encourages young people to write their own fiction within a historical setting of their choice. The competition helps them to develop knowledge of a specific time period and...

This year's Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition has once again provided some work of an exceptional standard. Year upon year, we were not only astounded by the number of entries we receive, but also by the very high standard, which makes the judging process very difficult. This year, we...

This year's Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition has been bigger and better than ever. We were not only astounded by the number of entries we received, but also be the very high standard, which makes the judging process very difficult. This year, we were very ably helped by student...

The 2015 Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition has been bigger and better than ever. We were not only astounded by the number of entries we received, but also be the very high standard, which makes the judging process very difficult. The stories below comprise our 2015 Secondary shortlist for the best...

The 2015 Write Your Own Historical Fiction competition has been bigger and better than ever. We were not only astounded by the number of entries we received, but also be the very high standard, which makes the judging process very difficult. The stories below comprise our 2015 Secondary shortlist for the best...

Write Your Own Historical Story Competition and the Joan Blyth Memorial Prize 2014 winning stories. The competition this year has been very successful with more entries from more schools and a range of excellent stories by students across Year 5 to 9. We asked the winners if we might publish...

Write Your Own Historical Story Competition and the Joan Blyth Memorial Prize 2013 winning stories.The competition this year has been very successful with more entries from more schools and a range of excellent stories by students across Year 5 to 9.  We asked the winners if we might publish their...

The Historical Association Write Your Own Historical Story Competition and the Joan Blyth Memorial Prize 2012.The competition this year has again been successful. With the change in categories there was a very slight reduction in entries but this was balanced by the number of schools entering students who had been...

Write Your Own Historical Story Competition 2011. As part of this competition the winners were invited to have their stories published on the Historical Association website. In the best stories pupils deliberately drew upon the historical fiction writer's devices to write well. They had clearly been explicitly taught how to...

Write Your Own Historical Story Competition 2010. As part of this competition the winners were invited to have their stories published on the Historical Association website. In the best stories pupils deliberately drew upon the historical fiction writer's devices to write well. They had clearly been explicitly taught how to...

The competition this year has again been very successful. We received 111 entries from 51 schools across England and Wales. These broke down into 39 stories from Year 7 pupils, 41 from Year 8 pupils and 31 from Year 9 pupils. Their stories came from all periods and places in...