WHAT IS THE WICKED YOUNG WRITERS' AWARD?

The WICKED Young Writers' Award recognises excellence in writing, encourages creativity and helps develop writing talent in young people.

Any young person between the ages of 5 and 25 years old is eligible to enter, making the award the first of its kind to reward excellence to such a wide age-range of young people across the whole of the UK.

There will be the opportunity to enter into five different age categories:

• 5-7 years old
• 8-10 years old
• 11-13 years old
• 14-16 years old
• 17-25 years old

The main judges for the 2011 WICKED Young Writers' Award are Michael McCabe, Executive Producer of WICKED, Michael Morpurgo, former Children's Laureate and bestselling author and William Fiennes, author and founder of First Story.

The individual Gregory Maguire Award is specifically designed for young people aged between 17 and 25 and encourages entries that, in the same style as Gregory Maguire's famous novels, takes a well-known story and examines it from a different perspective. CLICK HERE to learn more about Gregory and his work.

WHAT CAN WICKED YOUNG WRITERS WIN?

The top 20 winning entries from each age category will be invited to a very special prize ceremony during autumn/winter 2011.

One overall young writer will be chosen as a winner from each age category and will receive:

• An exclusive WICKED experience including four tickets to see the London production of WICKED with their family and an opportunity to meet cast members after the show.
• A WICKED writing master class from a published writer or one of the Wicked Young Writers' Award judges.
• Book tokens to the value of £50.

WHAT ARE THE RULES?

The WICKED Young Writers' Award is completely free and is all about what young people want to write; entries can range from stories, to poems, to drama and if the Young Writer is feeling particularly creative they can even include illustrations (judging will be based on writing only).

The Award is open to any young person from the UK and Northern Ireland aged between 5 and 25 years old on the closing date of 31 July 2011.

Entries must be typewritten and no longer than 750 words.

The judges' decisions are final and no correspondence with the judges can be entered into.

Once entered for the award, entries cannot be returned.

CLICK HERE for a full list of WICKED Young Writers' Award rules.

WHY WICKED?

The musical WICKED is based on the first novel in Gregory Maguire's WICKED series that re-imagined the stories and characters created by L. Frank Baum in 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' first published over a century ago in 1900.

WICKED tells the untold story of an unlikely but profound friendship between two girls who first meet as sorcery students. As the audience follows them on their extraordinary adventures in Oz that will ultimately see them fulfil their destinies as Glinda The Good and the Wicked Witch of the West, they are encouraged to look at things differently by exploring themes of friendship, trust, tolerance, bullying, the use of propaganda and the manipulation of public opinion.

Over 250,000 pupils have seen WICKED as it enters into its fifth year at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre.