Tuesday 18 July 2023
This year, to tie in with The Orwell Youth Prize theme ‘Who’s in Control?’, the Orwell Youth Fellows have created a dystopian and satirical world, inspired by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and taking in new ideas about our world, including the rise of AI and the climate crisis. The result was the state of Digitalis.
Over the coming weeks, subscribers to The Digitalis Archives – a new publication on the subscription network, Substack – will receive a wide-ranging series of ‘historical artefacts’ from the archives of the state of Digitalis, including short stories, podcasts, poetry, screenplays, letters, adverts and more, all curated by the Orwell Youth Fellows.
Please read responsibly and remember: you are living in a more enlightened time.
About The Orwell Youth Fellows
The Orwell Youth Fellows are a young writer’s collective first established in 2020. Since then, all winners and runners up of The Orwell Youth Prize have been invited to join the programme.
In their regular, facilitated Zoom meetings, the Youth Fellows share ideas, start conversations and develop new writing that is responsive to the society we live in and supports other young people to engage with the prize.
Recent projects include Axial Tilt, a Zine inspired by our 2022 theme ‘Coming Up For Air: Writing the Climate Crisis’ (get your copy here) and The Digitalis Archives, a new online magazine delivering subscribers weekly updates from the satirical, dystopian state of Digitalis.
About The Orwell Youth Prize
The Orwell Youth Prize is a national writing prize for young people aged 12-18 from across the UK. Far more than just a prize, each year’s theme is inspired by the writings of George Orwell, whilst encouraging young people to think critically and creatively about the world around them and issues which matter today.
The programme is free to enter and participants can submit writing in any form. Alongside its exciting hub events, the Youth Prize also provides free writing resources for individual entrants and teachers. All entrants are also offered personalized feedback on a first draft.
For more information/images, or to find out more about using The Orwell Youth Prize in your school, please contact Tabby Hayward at tabby.hayward@
