Eastern Angles Festive Ghost Story Competition

A writing competition for 7–12-year-olds 

 Ghost stories can inspire, shiver and spook. Think of figures from past, present and future; whispers down empty corridors and shadows in empty rooms.  

This Winter we’re challenging young writers across Suffolk to create their own short story for our Festive Ghost Story Competition. In the spirit of our upcoming show A Christmas Carol we’re looking for the two most imaginative Christmassy ghost stories in Suffolk, and there are some scarily awesome prizes up for grabs for two lucky winners! 

The Eastern Angles Festive Ghost Story Competition is open to young people aged 7-12 living in Suffolk, submissions are open from Tuesday 19th November until Friday 13th December. 

The rules? Stories must be imaginative, must be set during Christmas and must feature at least one ghost! Written stories can be up to 500 words long, or you can choose to express your story through a narrative video recording (up to 2 minutes) or in pictures (up to 2 pages).  

Our judges will be crowning two winners, one aged 7-9 and one aged 10-12. Prizes include tickets to see A Christmas Carol at the Eastern Angles Centre, a gift voucher for Dial Lane Book, and books from Suffolk Libraries. 

Meet the judges: 

Erin Hamilton is the Children’s Librarian for Suffolk Libraries. She gets to create fun events and activities for families across the county and loves reading all types of children's literature! 

Andrew Marsh is owner of Dial Lane Books in Ipswich. Andrew's vision was to offer an alternative to online and large chain bookshops in terms of giving smaller publishers and up-and-coming authors a platform.

KirstyTallent is Eastern Angles’ Engagement Project Coordinator, her role includes managing the Nourish programme, a free weekday community programme, running at the Eastern Angles Centre. She also works alongside the Associate Director to deliver the Youth Theatre programme at Eastern Angles.

How to submit your story: 

• Email it to Kirsty on kirsty@easternangles.co.uk – please include the story as an attachment, rather than in the body of the email. 

• Post it to the Eastern Angles Centre, Gatacre Road, Ipswich IP1 2LQ. 

• Drop it off in person to the Eastern Angles Centre. 

When submitting your story please make sure to include your full name, your age, and your contact details (parent/carer email address and phone number) – without this information we can’t give you any prizes! 

All stories must be submission by 12pm noon on Friday 13th December.