BBC - Radio 2 - 500 WORDS Competition - 2012

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500 WORDS is back!

Our brilliant short story writing competition is back for 2012, and we need your help to make it bigger than last year! Click play above to find out more about 500 WORDS and watch Chris talking to 2011's winners, Angus and Olivia.

Could you write a story that will dazzle and delight our judges? Will you volunteer to help us judge this year's winning stories? If the answer's yes - get clicking! Good luck!

Submit Your Story

If you're aged 13 or under, what are you waiting for? Get writing!

We want you to send us something mad, magical, mind-blowing or mysterious...

You could win yourself a pile of books as tall as Chris Evans, and 500 books for your school library!

Help Us Judge

We're asking teachers and librarians throughout the UK to volunteer their time to help us whittle this year's submissions down to a shortlist.

In return for marking a batch of stories, we'll enter you in our draw for tickets to attend the Hay on Wye Literary Festival with Chris and the team!

Kids! Enter your story

Teachers - Help us Judge

We want kids all over the UK to hear about 500 WORDS, so we've made some colourful posters that you can stick up in your school or library!

(Right click the link and choose 'save as' to download a PDF for printing)

This year's winning stories will be picked by Chris Evans and five of the country's finest children's authors. Find out who might end up reading YOUR story...