The SECRET IDENTITY
Short Story Contest:
A just-for-fun short story contest for young writers, ages 9-16.
Closed for Judging.
Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a story! We are currently judging entries and will announce the winners via email on Monday, December 2nd (in the evening in NZ). The winners will be personally notified by email, and we’ll post their stories and any Honourable Mentions here on our website as well. 🙌
Join Mailing List!
If you didn’t get a chance to join in, you can sign up to our mailing list here. That way you’ll be notified of future contests and any giveaways we run in the meantime. We’d love to have you join us! 🙂
The Storylights Team:

Amy Bryant
…an award-winning writer of Children’s & YA Fantasy Adventure (coming soon), who loves cheering on young writers.

Thor the Viking Sheep
…Chief Bodyguard and Mascot of Epicness, who dauntlessly watches out for enemies and gives well-meaning (if unhelpful) advice.

Josh Bryant
…master of fancy website stuff, who raises 4 little hobbits with his lovely wife Summer and gives much better advice. (Don’t tell Thor.)
“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”
– William Faulkner
Privacy Policy
The Storylights
Firstly, we'll never sell or share any of your personal information with anyone else unless we're required to by law, and we only collect the minimum personal data that we need to run our services. For example, we need your name and email address so we can notify you if your competition entry has been selected for a prize, or to send you details about our next competition.
Secondly, any original story material that you send to us, either as part of a competition or not, remains your own personal intellectual property. However, by submitting your story to us, you grant us the right to display it on on our website, and we agree to always credit it to you the author. You retain full rights to your story, including the right to reuse it or resubmit it to any other competition or publication.
Terms & Conditions
The Storylights
By using this website, (for example, by submitting a form, or entering a competition or giveaway), you agree to be bound by and follow these terms and conditions:
- You agree that you are either at least 13 years old, or you have the permission of a parent or guardian to use this website.
- We understand that the name you choose to use on our website or submit with a competition entry, may be an alias or pen name (for young authors, this can be a good way to help protect your privacy), but you understand that we will treat that name like your real name, including when we provide credit to the author of a winning story.
- You agree that any written work that you submit to us as part of a competition or giveaway, is your own original work, written by you and not copied from or written by another person. (No AI work permitted.)
- You agree to not submit any written work to us that promotes or encourages violence, racism, self-harm, or any other activity that is either illegal or potentially damaging to other people.
- You keep all intellectual property rights to any of your own written material that you submit to us, but you agree to give us the right to display your work on our website as part of the services we provide. (For example, displaying competition winners and honourable mentions.)
- We reserve the right to judge competition entries at our sole discretion, and will award the winning entry based on whatever criteria we think to be fair.
- We reserve the right to exclude from competition, any entry that we feel goes against the spirit of the competition, or breaches one of our other conditions, like plagiarism.