Teenage po­ets, play­wrights, non-fic­tion and fic­tion writ­ers have a new op­por­tu­ni­ty to win prizes, train­ing and the chance to have their work pub­lished through the Allen Prize for Young Writ­ers. The Allen Prize is a new not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, ded­i­cat­ed to giv­ing en­cour­age­ment, train­ing and re­wards to T&T's writ­ers aged 12 to 19. The or­gan­i­sa­tion will be host­ing a com­pe­ti­tion, which ends on No­vem­ber 30, as well as a se­ries of writ­ing sem­i­nars. The first is sched­uled for ear­ly Oc­to­ber, and two oth­ers to fol­low in the com­ing terms. Win­ners of the com­pe­ti­tion will be in­vit­ed to a two-day writ­ing work­shop, where they will have the chance to be cri­tiqued and men­tored by ex­pe­ri­enced writ­ers.

The head judge of the com­pe­ti­tion is se­nior jour­nal­ist, Judy Ray­mond.

"They say it takes 10,000 hours of prac­tice to be re­al­ly good at some­thing–so the younger you start, the bet­ter," said Ray­mond. "That ap­plies to writ­ing just as much as it does to any oth­er skill. It's not just a mat­ter of nat­ur­al tal­ent. It takes a lot of work. "But the good news is that as with any oth­er skill, there are some as­pects of writ­ing that can be taught. That's what this prize is of­fer­ing: more than a prize, and more than en­cour­age­ment. As­pir­ing writ­ers will al­so re­ceive train­ing and sup­port from ex­pe­ri­enced prac­ti­tion­ers of the craft.

It's a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty–and the judges can't wait to read the re­sults," Ray­mond added. The com­pe­ti­tion is open free of charge to res­i­dents of T&T. Win­ners will take home cash awards, and their work will be pub­lished by the Allen Prize for Young Writ­ers. "We are tremen­dous­ly hum­bled by the ear­ly re­sponse to the an­nounce­ment of the com­pe­ti­tion on our Face­book page and Web site," said writer and founder of the Allen Prize, Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni. "A lot of young peo­ple seem anx­ious for it to be­gin. We look for­ward to work­ing with schools to bring this won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to this coun­try's young writ­ers."

More in­fo:

Sub­mis­sions, guide­lines, and en­try forms for the Allen Prize com­pe­ti­tion are on­line at the Web site http://al­len­prize.org.

For more in­for­ma­tion, e-mail: in­fo@al­len­prize.org.