Short Story Contest

6th Annual Animal Services Tails of Hope Short Story Writing Contest

Contest Details

Join us, the Pickering Public Library and Scholars of Pickering and Ajax and write a short story about your furry friend. If you don't have a furry friend, that's okay, use your imagination and create an animal related story of your own. Select stories will be professionally published with one copy going to the child, and another becoming part of a permanent collection that will be used at the library and future animal related programming. Interested children should register for the program in advance to learn more about the criteria and deadlines.

3 Age Categories

5-7 yrs
8-10 yrs
11 - 12 yrs

Guidelines for submission:

All stories must have a biography of the author.
Images must have no watermarks.
All stories must be written by the child with no use of AI.
Only emailed stories will be accepted.
Please do not submit cellphone pictures of your story for quality purposes.

Before submitting your story make sure your story has the following:

Cover (Title/Written by…you!)
Stories must be no more than 12 pages long (can be pictures, drawings, cartoons…be creative!)
Write a dedication (to my dog Oakley/for my cat Trixie)
Artist Bio/Self-portrait (write a line and draw a picture of yourself and your furry friend)
Each page should be 8.5 x 11

Registration Opens on May 11th!

Tails of Hope Short Story Contest: How to Workshop

Stay tuned for information on our 2026 Writers Workshop

5th Annual Animal Services Tails of Hope Short Story Writing Contest Winners

This past September, Animal Services along with the Pickering Public Library and HiFive Kids Dental announced this years winners of the 2025 Tails of Hope Short Story Contest.

The Tails of Hope Short Story Writing Contest asked our community to write a short story about their furry friends. We were thrilled to receive so many creative and high quality submissions and are happy to share the top 3 winners, one from each age category:

Lily The Rescued Cat, by Humayraa Pathan: (5-7 years)
Me and My Buddy, by Ava Sampat: (8-10 years)
Wish, by Gloriana Waltus: (11-12 years)

Young authors received a professionally published copy of their story and 4 large compilation books were created to highlight all 25 entries. Two compilation books will be in circulation at the Pickering Public Library, while one will remain at the Pickering Animal Shelter and one at HiFive Kids Dental & Braces. We encourage the community to stop into each of the locations to read these talented authors stories.

Thank you to all of the young authors!