The WE READ Youth Voices writing contest is open for submissions May 1 – June 30, 2026. Six youth will be published and win up to $500 in cash prizes thanks to support from the Madison Public Library Foundation.
Hosted by Madison Public Library in collaboration with Forward Madison FC and the Wisconsin Book Festival, the contest is open to anyone 18 and under in the Madison area. Submissions are accepted in English, Spanish, Hmong, and other languages. They can include short stories, poems, comics, graphic novels, and more.
This year’s WE READ Youth Ambassador is Octavia Ikard, the 2025-26 city of Madison Youth Poet Laureate. A creative writing major and First Wave scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ikard got their start in spoken word clubs. The 2026 contest theme is Community in Action.
Ikard says, “Community serves as a reminder that every action we take plants a seed into something or someone. When we seek connections for the sake of sharing rather than gaining something from them, our care for one another becomes something powerful.” Ikard will visit local schools, serve as judge, and write the foreword for the WE READ Youth Voices Anthology of youth voices released during the Wisconsin Book Festival Fall Celebration.
As a supporter of WE READ, the Foundation is excited to see the Youth Voices Writing Contest enters its 5th year of uplifting literary creativity among emerging writers in the Madison community.
Learn more about the contest at https://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/weread/youthvoices
The WE READ program is funded by Madison Public Library Foundation, American Family Insurance Dreams Foundation, Steve Stricker American Family Insurance Foundation, Roots & Wings Foundation, and Jane Doughty & David Wood.
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