Tom Fletcher Set to Launch Blue Peter's Amazing Authors Competition!

Tom Fletcher is set to become the star of Blue Peter’s latest competition, Amazing Authors, offering budding young writers a once-in-a-lifetime prize.

The popular singer and children’s author is encouraging young viewers to pen a short story or poem for the contest, which will be brought to life as a book and read as a CBeebies Bedtime Story.

Entrants must 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.

The work will be turned into a book and animation, created by award-winning animation studio Aardman, with funding support from the Arts Council’s National Lottery Project Grants. Tom will be reading the winning story on Blue Peter, and it will also be available as a podcast on BBC Sounds.

The incredible prize also includes a behind-the-scenes trip to HarperCollins and Aardman to see how characters are illustrated and books are published, as well as a framed picture from the animation and a Blue Peter competition winner’s Orange Badge.

Tom is thrilled to be part of the competition, saying: “I absolutely love sharing stories and books with my own children and seeing their eyes light up as they are transported into another world. It will be a real privilege to see what ingenious ideas and characters the kids come up with.”

Blue Peter Editor, Ellen Evans, hopes the competition will “fire up children’s imaginations” and get them excited about books and writing stories.

The Reading Agency is working with BBC Studios Kids & Family and BBC Arts to provide schools and libraries with resources and deliver a workshop to give tips on how to enter the competition.

The competition opens next Friday (27 January 2023) and closes at 5pm on Wednesday 8 March 2023. Full details of how to enter, including rules and privacy notice, will be on the Blue Peter website at www.bbc.co.uk/bluepeter.

Tom is looking forward to joining Blue Peter and encouraging young people to unleash their creativity: “I’m still enthralled by children’s books even as an adult, so it will be great to see what stories the kids come up with.”