The 2021 competition

My Twist on a Tale: Our Tomorrow

On International Literacy Day 2021, we launched our My Twist on a Tale writing competition for its third year! 

The free competition, which we opened up to 4–19 year olds across the UK, encouraged young people to cast their minds ahead to the future and produce their own reflections on what tomorrow might bring.

The winning stories and poems ranged from earthlings zipping around on hoverboards and cyborg dogs to a space version of Romeo and Juliet and the need for new laws to keep people safe. 

We created audio versions of each winning story too. We hope you enjoy listening to them!

Who were the winners in 2021?

Our Key Stage winners

Image of a cyborg dog

Key Stage 1

Sebastian Dechamps

Image from the poem of an old man looking out the window, imagining his younger self seeing this future world

Key Stage 2

Veer Khanna

Image of Romeo in his spaceship

Key Stage 3

Nathaniel Reed

Image of the desolate world

Key Stage 4

Emily Spratt

Image of a female doctor leaving the shop

Key Stage 5

Adrienn Baczur

Our regional winners

Image of children floating around in a spaceship

Scotland

Aidan Harris

New Atlantis

Northern Ireland

Emma-Louise White

Girl looking out over the floods holding a fish

Wales

Holly Thorpe

Two girls sat by a (fake) wooden fence

East Anglia

Jessica Smith

Monsters searching for the man

North East

Erin Cooper

A new pair of legs being delivered!

North West

Larrie Marsh

A blue flower

Yorkshire and the Humber

Taya Brown

Child being digitally uploaded into Ingamed

London

Leo Templer

Image of a scary man threatening a girl on her run

South East

Phoebe Harris

A factory chucking out smoke

South West

Sophia Papasouliotis

A girl struggling with nostalgia

East Midlands

Tanya Arion

A beautiful tiger

West Midlands

Jasmine Hussain

Read all the the winning stories in one PDF

All the winning stories

Illustrations are by Liliana Perez, c/o Collaborate.