Singer and children’s author Tom Fletcher is supporting Blue Peter’s latest competition offering budding young writers a money can’t buy prize.

The Amazing Authors competition, run in partnership with The Reading Agency and BBC Arts, opens for entries this Friday 27 January 2023 and will ask young viewers to pen a short story or poem. The winning story will then be brought to life as a book and read as a CBeebies Bedtime Story.

Burgeoning young authors will need to come up with a brilliant main character, which could be a human, animal, or something completely imaginary – who gets caught up in an amazing adventure.

Their work will then be turned into a book and an animation, creating a wonderful story brought to life by award-winning animation studio, Aardman, thanks to funding support from the Arts Council’s National Lottery Project Grants. It will be read by Tom on Blue Peter, and will even be available as a podcast on BBC Sounds.

As part of this once in a lifetime prize, the winner will also get to go behind the scenes at HarperCollins and Aardman to see how characters are illustrated and books are published before receiving a printed version of their story to treasure forever. They will also receive a framed picture from the animation and a Blue Peter competition winner’s Orange Badge.

The competition is open for entries from 27 January and closes at 5pm on 8 March 2023.

Tom says: “I absolutely love sharing stories and books with my own children and seeing their eyes light up as they are transported into another world, so it’s brilliant to be part of the Blue Peter Amazing Authors Competition. I’m still enthralled by children’s books even as an adult, so it will be a real privilege to see what ingenious ideas and characters the kids themselves come up with.”

Editor of Blue Peter, Ellen Evans, explains the show wanted to work with a leading children’s author like Tom as a way of firing up children’s imaginations and encouraging them to visit their local library, to get excited about books and writing stories.

She says: “I’m so looking forward to reading all of the stories that are submitted from our viewers and I have no doubt there are lots of aspiring young writers out there with a huge amount of talent.”

The Amazing Authors competition is a collaboration between BBC Studios Kids & Family, BBC Arts and The Reading Agency. The Reading Agency is providing schools and libraries with resources and delivering a workshop to encourage children to enter and to give tips on how to get started. More information on booking this session can be found on the Reading Agency website.

Karen Napier, CEO, The Reading Agency says: “We are really excited to be working with BBC Arts on this fantastic competition with Blue Peter. By engaging children across the country in writing for pleasure, we hope that we'll see the children building their confidence and their broader reading habits. We’d also like to thank Tom and his publisher Puffin Books for their generous support. "

Suzy Klein, Head of Arts and Classical Music TV, says: “Cultivating a lifelong love of reading is central to what we do at the BBC and this competition is an opportunity to celebrate the next generation of brilliant writers. I can’t wait to see the stories our Amazing Authors bring to life and look forward to this wonderful showcase of reading and imagination.”

The competition is open for entries next Friday (27 January 2023) when full details of how to enter, including rules and privacy notice will be on the Blue Peter website at www.bbc.co.uk/bluepeter

The competition closes at 5pm on Wednesday 8 March 2023.