Children’s short story competition set to raise money for a South Shields autism charity

The Gilesgate Story Challenge aims to get children excited about reading and writing stories, with a team of volunteers judging, illustrating and self publishing a book each year for charity.

The judges for 2023 included Lisette Auton, Kylie Dixon and Miles Nelson, who are all published children’s authors.

The overall winner of the competition was Callum Gudge, a pupil at Barbara Priestman Academy in Sunderland, and an official signing is set to take place at Waterstones in The Bridges Shopping Centre on Saturday, July 22, at 11am.

The books will be priced at £8 each, with all proceeds going to the Toby Henderson Trust, who are based at The Autism Hub, on Gordon Street, in South Shields.

Simon Berry, the founder of the competition, has told the Gazette why the South Shields charity has been selected for this year.

He said: “In the past, we’ve supported quite a few charities throughout County Durham but a lot of this year’s authors are from Sunderland and around 90% of them have autism.

“So we wanted to select a charity that is connected to them and the Toby Henderson Trust does a lot of really good work with children who have autism.

“We’ve had a lot of success in previous years raising money for charity so we are hoping that this year will be the same.

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“If we can get at least £1,000 raised for the Toby Henderson Trust then I will be happy.

“A lot of the stories in this year’s book are a different style of writing purely because of how the children perceive the world around them.

“It has been great to see the smiles on the children’s faces when I’ve shown them the printed book and it is fantastic that they will be able to go into book shops and see it for themselves.”

In recent years, the Challenge has raised more than £3,500 for various charities across the North East of England.

You can find out more about the Gilesgate Story Challenge by clicking here.