For the last 30 years, Bridport Arts Centre has run the Bridport Prize: an international cretive writing competition which now has high standing in the literary world. This year, we have successfully 'test run' an equivalent prize for children on a local basis. We would love to take the idea to a national level, building on the current interest in literacy, using the Prize to demonstrate the power of words. We already have long experience of the infrastucture and resources needed to run a creative writing Prize. Launching Bridport Prize Junior would entail substantial increase of that infrastructure, since we anticipate many thousands of entries, plus an intensive national media campaign, resource packs for schools and libraries and creative writing workshops across the UK. We believe the results would be well worth the investment: encouragement across the country for children to think about expressing themselves on paper, and a celebration of what they can achieve in this artform.