emag Close Reading Competition 2025
Every year emagazine runs a competition focusing on the close reading of a passage of literature, usually an extract from a novel. The competition aims to foreground a skill that is central to all literary study – the ability to read and respond to a short text, showing insight, understanding and an ability to bring your own responses to bear in interesting ways.
- Read the extract – download here. It is the opening of Tenterhooks, a novel by Ada Leverson, published in 1912.
- Write no more than 500 words about the extract, in which you explore what you find most interesting about it.
- Submit your entry before 5pm Wednesday 21st May: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/emagCR25
- Deadline: 5pm Wednesday 21st May
- Winner announced online beginning July
- Winning entry published in emagazine 109, September 2025
- Professor Robert Eaglestone and emagazine editors.
- Winner: £150 and publication in emagazine
- Runners-up: £50 and publication online
emagazine competitions are open to all 16-19 year olds currently in full-time education. This means that students who finish their A Level courses (or equivalent courses such as IB, BTEC and Pre-U) in Summer 2025 are eligible to enter.
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