Rudyard Kipling Young Writers Award

In early May, we launched the Rudyard Kipling Young Writers Award as a way to promote The Landmark Trust USA’s 25th anniversary. We secured help from three teachers to frame the submissions, five judges to read and evaluate submissions, and a venue in the main theater in the Latchis in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The judges are all accomplished authors and teachers who divided the works into three categories of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The challenge was open to all 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in Windham County, Vermont, or the southeast corner.

We received 89 submissions from 90 students: 14 poems, 8 nonfiction pieces, and 67 fiction pieces. Eleven efforts were truly remarkable, with the overall best winning a one-night stay at Naulakha, and the winners in poetry and fiction received one-night stays at Kipling’s Carriage House. There has been great enthusiasm about this event from parents, teachers, and students, so this will become an annual event.