Orwell youth prize

Talented Appleton School Sixth Form student Ewan has achieved national recognition for his short fiction entry ‘A Grand Reveal’ into Orwell Youth Prize as the Senior Runner Up.

Inspired by its own ‘Big Brother’, Britain’s most prestigious national Prize for political writing, the Orwell Youth Prize aims to support and inspire a new generation of politically engaged young writers. This year’s entrants were asked to think and write creatively about the theme ‘Who’s in Control?’.

The judges of The Orwell Youth Prize 2023 were Orwell Prize-winning author, Delia Jarrett-Macauley; Financial Times Global Education Editor, Andrew Jack; the BBC’s Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent, Marianna Spring; and Forward Prize-winning poet, Will Harris. Over 500 young writers responded in the form of essays, poetry, short fiction, journalism, and video game designs. The standard was once again incredibly high, so much so that the competition selectors shortlisted forty-three outstanding pieces to go forward to the judges.

Ewan, who is currently in Year 13 at The Appleton School Sixth Form studying A-Levels in Maths, Physics and English Language, also submitted the short fiction piece as his Extended Project Qualification artefact, gaining full marks and an outstanding A* grade this summer. Judges were extremely impressed with Ewan’s writing with Will Harris Forward Prize-winning poet and Orwell Youth Prize judge 2023 commenting that Ewan’s writing was, “Remarkable technically, in its control of pace and paragraph, and in the author’s manipulation of readerly expectation.”