The 29th edition of Spark Young Writers Magazine is out now. Published online in December 2024, the magazine features some of the best writing produced by children and young people aged 8 to 20 who live in the West Midlands region. Editor’s pick this issue is a piece by Amelie Baker called My Abandoned Flip Flops.
To read Issue 29, click here. To access it as a PDF, click here.
If you’re interested in submitting to the next issue, find out how here.
One of the many things I like about the Spark Young Writers’ Magazine is that we rarely impose a theme on the writers — and we’re not all that strict when we do. You’ll never get a whole issue where every story, for instance, is about Christmas socks.
Yet even though our only stipulations are that pieces be 500 words or less, and that they are the writer’s best work, sometimes a theme does emerge. It’s not as overt as if we asked everyone to write about tinsel, yet as you read Issue 29 I think you’ll see a common theme.
So many of the pieces have characters who yearn for something more, something better. So many of the writers are looking for a new and better future.
What I deeply love, though, is that even when an issue seems to me to capture one certain mood, the writers do it in radically different ways. So this time we have fantasy, sometimes quite scary fantasy, and we also have the piece that is my Editor’s Choice for the issue: Amelie Baker’s My Abandoned Flip Flops. Do go read that one.
William Gallagher
Editor