August 11, 2026

Ninth through twelfth grade students across the country and around the world are invited to sign up for Bennington College’s Young Writers Summer Challenge, a free virtual writing series this August.

Offering an emailed message each week during this month-long program, the Young Writers Summer Challenge gives high school writers a chance to get their creative juices flowing with writing prompts and author recommendations for further reading. 

Joining the challenge is simple: after writers sign up for the email series, they may use the weekly prompts as a springboard for their work. 

Afterwards, they can submit their favorite sentence from their weekly writing. Participants who submit for all four prompts will also be entered to win a prize from Bennington College.

How to Submit Your Response

Students will need to use Bennington's Young Creators Awards portal to submit their weekly responses. To gain access to this portal, sign up for Young Creators Awards updates and check the box to receive "Young Writers" updates.

Week Four Young Writers Summer Challenge Prompt: 

If you’ve heard of Bennington College, you’ve heard of The Secret History. Written while its author, alum Donna Tartt ’86, was still a student at Bennington, the book continues to find a new generation of fans who love dark academia—offering a combination of bucolic setting, sophisticated collegiate experience, eccentric group of friends, oh…and murder.

Get a little dark-and-stormy for this last week of the challenge:

• Write about something that scares you, 
• Opine about a haunting (literal or figurative), 
• Or set your story in a spooky locale.

Week Three Young Writers Summer Challenge Prompt:

Bennington alum Sofia Alvarez ’07 wrote the Netflix screenplay adaptation for Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and its sequel, To All the Boys 2: P.S. I Still Love You. 

In To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the protagonist Lara Jean runs into trouble when she finds that her private letters to her crushes have all been mailed to the recipients. 

While we hope this never happens to you, the results make for great reading (and watching)! Submit your favorite sentence this week for credit toward your Young Writers Summer Challenge.

• Experiment with structuring this week’s challenge as a letter—to your past (or future) self, your significant other, a friend, a family member, or a celebrity. 
• Or, use a letter and its crucial contents as a turning point in your story’s plot.

Week Two Young Writers Summer Challenge Prompt:

Today’s writing prompt is inspired by Bennington alum Michael Pollan ’76, the author of numerous New York Times bestselling nonfiction books, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, which explores how America’s relationship to its food systems influences its health, culture, and environmental impact. 

Give yourself some food for thought! Use one of these ideas as a launching point, and submit your favorite sentence to build your Young Writers Summer Challenge.

• How can you explore your relationship to your culture through meals?
• Can food be a poetic metaphor—for consumption, desire, indulgence, nourishment, or even something rotten or spoiled?
• Does a meal-gone-wrong pivot your short story’s plot? (Explosive arguments–or even clandestine poisoning of a character–abound!) 

Week One Young Writers Summer Challenge Prompt:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Mary Oliver, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet (and longtime Bennington College faculty member) posed this question in her poem “The Summer Day,” and it’s been getting people feeling some kind of way ever since.

Depending on where you live, you may not be able to adventure through the Vermont hills like Mary Oliver, but let’s go traveling together. 

• Set your weekly writing in a location you’ve always wanted to explore.
• Then, submit your favorite sentence from this week’s writing to count toward your goal.

About the Young Writers Awards

Bennington College’s Young Writers Awards competition is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Bennington has also expanded the Young Writers Awards into the Young Creators Awards, with additional opportunities for artists, musicians, scientists, and innovators.

This annual competition, which accepts entries in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, is free to enter and open to all high school students in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. A first-, second-, and third-place winner is selected in each of the categories, with cash prizes up to $2,000 awarded.

Young Writers Award finalists and winners are also eligible for undergraduate scholarships at Bennington, up to full tuition. 

Submissions for the 2026-2027 Young Writers Awards will be accepted from September 1 through November 1, 2026, with winners announced in spring 2027. Visit bennington.edu/YWA for more information, to view submission guidelines, or to sign up to receive notifications about the competition. 

Downloadable Young Writers Awards posters are also available for interested educators.