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Welcome to the Contests Page!

AADL sponsors a variety of contests for kids and teens. Each contest offers participants the opportunity to show off their creativity from writing to graffiti. Our annual contests include...

The Graffiti Art Contest is held annually during the Ann Arbor Art Fairs for grades 6-12. All supplies, including paint and painting surfaces, are provided. Participants work on site within a structured time period. Judging occurs the same day and prizes are awarded in the form of gift certificates. All artwork will be displayed for one month at the Ann Arbor District Library. Check out the list of winners and look at all the artwork created for the 2008 & 2009 contests.

The LEGO Contest is for ages pre-School through grade 12. Participants build their projects at home and bring them to the library for judging. Prizes are awarded in the form of gift certificates and award ribbons during a large awards ceremony on the evening of the judging. The 2009 LEGO Contest took place on Monday, August 10 at Weber's Inn (3050 Jackson Ave); take a look at the rules and guidelines for more details. Check out the list of winners from every contest and look at all the entries to the 2008 & 2009 LEGO Contests.

Our Manga Drawing Contest occurs each summer for grades K-12. Participants create artwork at home and bring it to the Library for judging and display. The contest culminates with an awards ceremony and prizes are awarded in the form of gift certificates. For more information take a look at the rules and guidelines. Check out the list of winners and look at all the drawings entered in the 2008 & 2009 contests.

The "It's All Write!" Short Story Writing Contest includes generous prizes to be distributed among nine winners! The contest is open to students in grades 6-12. Writers submit an original short story to be judged by a panel of published authors. The Awards Ceremony is held during the Ann Arbor Book Festival in May. Check out the list of winners from the past few years and read the winning stories from the 2008 & 2009 contest. Submissions for the 2010 "It's All Write!" Short Story Contest will be accepted between January 22 and March 19; take a look at the rules and guidelines for more details.

Read the blog posts below for more information on upcoming and past contests....

Submitted by Bertha on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 6:12pm

2010 It's All Write! Short Story Writing Contest

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Got an idea for a short story? The timing is perfect if you do, either have an idea you've been thinking about, or put an ending to a story that has a brilliant beginning but you just didn't know how to finish. The 2010 It's All Write short story writing contest for area teens has begun. The last day to turn in stories is Friday, March 19. Click here for complete guidelines.

1st Place ($250), 2nd Place ($150), and 3rd Place ($100) prizes will be awarded in the following categories : Grades 6-8, Grades 9-10, and Grades 11-12.

Need inspiration? You might want to check out last year's winning stories or any of the short story collections edited by Donald R. Gallo.

Submitted by CasualTim on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 12:44pm

It's good to be short

While perusing the blog of a Harper Collins marketing coordinator (read about it on muffy’s post), I saw that she invited readers to create six-word memoirs, inspired by the book It All Changed In An Instant : More Six-Word Memoirs By Writers Famous & Obscure. This got me thinking about how the new kind of mass communication (that is, personal broadcasting) is all about brevity. 140 characters in Twitter and texting, four-word film reviews, six-word memoirs, or 55 fiction, the personal tale is trending to shortness.

The cynic in me might attribute this to what seems to be an increasingly shorter attention span in the human animal, but the English major in me knows there’s more to the (short) story: rigid structure and restraint often help us process and speak about things in a more poignant way. Perhaps one of the most moving examples of this phenomenon is W.S. Merwin’s “Elegy,” which can be found in The Carrier of Ladders or The Second Four Books of Poems. Another amazing example of hard-hitting, extremely short poetry is The Really Short Poems of A.R. Ammons.

Other short things I can suggest? The song “Minimum Wage” on the classic They Might Be Giants album Flood is 46 seconds long and contains two (maybe three) words. Kristin Chenoweth is reportedly 4’11,” and has done quite a bit of fun work in music, television, theater and film. Find her song “Taylor the Latte Boy” on your online vendor of choice or check out Pushing Daisies. The Ann Arbor District Library conducts its own short story contest, and the winning stories are a part of the circulating collection. I haven’t gotten around to watching the Pixar Short Films Collection (v.1), but if the shorts you always get to see at the theater before one of their features are evidence of anything, it’s the beauty of simplicity and diminutiveness.

Submitted by erin on Tue, 08/11/2009 - 2:54pm

The 4th Annual LEGO Contest Winners are In!

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Another summer, another LEGO contest and good times were had by all! This year we had 155 entries and over 300 people attended the Awards Ceremony! The top three winners in each of the five age categories (Preschool, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 & 9-12) received gift certificates to Toys R Us and medals. Special thanks to our hardworking judges: Eli Neiburger, AADL Associate Director of IT and Product Development, Eric Klooster, AADL IT Application Developer and finally Langel Bookbinder, Founder and Proprietor of battleofthebits.org. The judges needed every second of their three hours of deliberation to make the hard decisions this year!

Congratulations to all of our winners! And see you next year!

Click read more to see all of this year's winners.

Submitted by Bertha on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 11:05am

7th Annual Teen Graffiti Art Contest

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Celebrate Art Fair! We'll provide the paint, supplies, canvases and easels. Three winners will receive gift certificates for art supplies at Michigan Book and Supply ($75, $50, $25). All art will be in a summer exhibit at AADL. Finished pieces will be judged by local artist, Joanie Newberry. Look here for last year's winners.
Friday, July 17 | 11:00 AM-1:00 PM | Downtown/Staff Parking Lot | Grades 6-12

Submitted by Bertha on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 10:43am

2009 Judges for the Teen's Short Story Writing Contest!

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Janet Lee Carey is the award-winning author of Stealing Death, Dragon's Keep and The Beast of Noor. www.janetleecarey.com

Steven Lee Climer is a professor of English at Baker College of Allen Park, MI. He has sold the motion picture rights of his novel ‘Demonesque’ to After Dark Productions, and is the recipient of several honors including the Darrell Award, Eppie for Best Horror Novel 2000, and 1997 finalist for Best First Novel from the International Horror Guild. Steve has published eight adult horror/fantasy novels, three works for children/Young Adults, a short story collection of horror stories, and over 20 short stories in various magazines.

John Coy writes picture books, middle-grade novels, and YA novels. His latest is Top of the Order, the first book in a series about four fifth-grade friends. He lives in Minnesota.

Submitted by Bertha on Mon, 05/18/2009 - 11:01am

2009 Short Story Teen Writing Contest WINNERS!

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CONGRATULATIONS and applause to all 216 teens who used their creativity, talent and courage and entered this year's short story writing contest. Below are listed the top three winning writers in the 3 grade categories:
(stay tuned for the list of finalists and bio's of this year's judges. . .)

MIDDLE SCHOOL WINNERS:
1st Place - Christy Choi - "Stynkchro Boy"
2nd Place - Christina Bartson - "Four Rolls of Toilet Paper"
3rd Place - Hannah Clague - "Brothers, Calendars, and Lies"