Entries for the 2025 Boroondara Literary Awards are open for another 4 weeks.

If you’re looking for inspiration or you’ve been hit by the dreaded writer’s block, read on for top tips from last year’s 6 Young Writers Competition winners.

Entries for this year’s awards close on Sunday 11 May. Submit your writing for the chance to win cash prizes and have your work published in our 2025 anthology.

Tips from last year’s winners

• ‘I read a lot of different types of books to get different perspectives from characters and find what fits with the story I’m writing.’
  
  - Jessica, First Place, 2024 Prose - Junior Category
   
• ‘Often the best entries aren’t the ones that you labour over for weeks or months but that take form within a few days.’
  
  - Annalisa, First Place, 2024 Prose - Middle Years Category
   
• ‘So, you’ve got an idea ping-ponging in your head, or maybe just the urge to put words on a page. In either case, that makes you a writer. But practice will make you a good one. The Boroondara Literary Awards allow young people to snag in their clutches one of the most important aspects of composition; a goal. Something driving you to draft a, likely horrendously messy, but ultimately (and crucially) malleable first iteration.
  
  - Saul, First Place, 2024 Prose - Senior Category
   
• ‘For poetry, use your imagination. Think of 10 words to explain the same thing and use them to explain the picture.’
  
  - Edison, First Place, 2024 Poetry - Junior Category
   
• ‘Writing isn’t just about putting words onto a page. It’s about creating meaning and memories on a page. Find something you’re passionate about and that you love and care about and make something out of it.’
  
  - Ariane, First Place, 2024 Poetry - Middle Years Category
   
• ‘When you start writing, begin with a phrase or image you have in mind that you think sounds nice. Things you write don’t have to have a grand or big meaning because they’ll fall into place over time.’
  
  - Polina, First Place, 2024 Poetry - Senior Category

About the awards

We deliver the Boroondara Literary Awards in partnership with Rotary Club of Balwyn.

For more information and eligibility criteria to enter the Young Writer Competition or Open Short Story category, visit our Enter the Boroondara Literary Awards page.

If you have any questions about entering the awards,  email [email protected] or call (03) 9278 4036.