Queen Camilla hosted a reception with finalists, judges and celebrity readers, to celebrate the final of BBC’s creative writing competition, 500 Words, at Buckingham Palace this afternoon
Famous faces at the event included actors Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Bonneville and singer Olivia Dean.
The BBC’s 500 Words is the UK’s most prestigious children’s writing competition, championed by The Queen who is a strong advocate for literacy. The competition encourages children of all abilities from across the UK to write without fear of spelling, grammar or punctuation errors.
The Final of the competition will be televised during a special 30-minute episode of ‘The One Show’ on the 7th of March – World Book Day.
The Queen, 76, also met with judges Sir Lenny Henry, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Francesca Simon, Charlie Higson and Malorie Blackman.
During the reception, Camilla met with the six illustrators who have been commissioned to illustrate the six winning stories which were on display. These are Axel Scheffler, Joelle Avelino, Fiona Lumbers, Sue Cheung, Jamie Smart and Steven Lenton.
Exhibits from the Royal Library were also be on display for guests to enjoy, including miniature books from Queen Mary’s Dolls House written by judge, Malorie Blackman and guest illustrator, Axel Scheffler.
Since the competition was first launched in 2011 by Chris Evans on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, it has received over one million stories from children throughout the UK.
The last 500 Words competition took place virtually due to the pandemic on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Breakfast show in 2020. Dua Lipa read a winning Gold entry and Dame Joanna Lumley read a winning Silver story during the final.
