After receiving hundreds of entries, winners of the Young Muslim Writers Awards 2017, a Muslim Hands project presented in association with the Yusuf Islam Foundation, will be announced on the 9th December at Muslim Hands’ annual ceremony celebrating young literary talent. Award-winning author Patrice Lawrence will be amongst those presenting trophies to the winners alongside an exciting lineup of performers.
The Young Muslim Writers Awards, initially set up as a standalone competition for 5 – 16 year olds in 2010, following its success as part of Muslim Hands’ Muslim Writers Awards. Since then, it has encouraged and nurtured the writing talents of thousands of children through creative writing workshops and the annual competition.
Forty-five young writers whose poetry, short stories and articles were the standout entries this year have now been shortlisted. Their submissions have been assessed by an internationally renowned panel of judges including award-winning children’s author of Orangeboy, Patrice Lawrence, Director of The Royal Society of Literature, Tim Robertson and award-winning author and comic writer G Willow Wilson.
Chairman of Muslim Hands, Syed Lakhte Hassanain, comments: “This year’s entries are once again remarkable! Young people of all ages from different corners of the country have taken part in the competition. The pieces written for the competition have been truly inspiring. It is amazing to see young people write so skillfully and with such creativity. As the work of young people continuously improves in its quality, it becomes more challenging for our judges to select the best pieces of work. Young people and children are incredibly talented individuals and we must support them in their development of learning, as it will help them achieve more and also thrive.
At Muslim Hands, this is what we are motivated by – in both our international development work and in our UK community projects.”
