Submissions are invited for Tiny Memoir Contest for Students by The New York Times. The last date of submission is December 4, 2024.
About NYT
The New York Times (NYT) is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. The New York Times covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews.
Contest Details
Can you tell a meaningful and interesting true story from your life in just 100 words? That’s the challenge they pose to teenagers with our 100-Word Personal Narrative Contest, a storytelling form popularized by Modern Love’s Tiny Love Stories series.
We’re not asking you to write to a particular theme or to use a specific structure or style, but we are looking for short, powerful stories about a particular moment or event in your life. We want to hear your story, told in your unique voice, and we hope you’ll experiment with style and form to tell a tale that matters to you, in a way you enjoy telling it.
Guidelines
- Your tiny memoir should be a short, powerful, true story about a meaningful experience from your own life.
- It must be 100 words or fewer, not including the title.
- You must be a student ages 13 to 19 in middle school or high school to participate, and all students must have parent or guardian permission to enter.
- The work should be fundamentally your own — it should not be plagiarized, written by someone else or generated by artificial intelligence.
- Your piece should also be original for this contest, meaning, it should not have been published anywhere else at the time of submission, such as in a school newspaper.
- Keep your audience in mind. You’re writing for a family newspaper, so, for example, no curse words, please.
- Only one entry per student is allowed. And while many of our contests allow students to work in teams, for this one you must work alone.
Prize
Having your work published on The Learning Network and being eligible to be chosen to have your work published in the print editions of The New York Times.
How to Submit?
Interested participants can submit online via this link.
Submission Deadline
The last date of submission is December 4, 2024.
Contact
Email: LNFeedback[at]nytimes[dot]com
FAQs
What is a personal narrative?
A personal narrative is an essay about an experience from your life. It is a type of nonfiction writing, which means that whatever you choose to write about should be true. And keep in mind the “personal” in personal narrative; you should tell your own story, not someone else’s.
How can I make my 100-word narrative stand out?
While we are asking you to write your personal narrative in the form of a story, we’re not asking you to use a particular structure, style or tone. We hope this is where you’ll have fun.
