The New Concept Writing Competition (新概念作文大赛) is a Chinese literary competition for young writers, who may submit work up to a maximum of 5000 Chinese characters. Many of the winners have gone on to have successful writing careers.
The main avenue for aspiring writers is through the China Writers Association, which sends the young writers it anoints as promising to the Lu Xun Literary Institute and grants them access to the entrenched hierarchy of literary periodicals under its commands. Besides this, there is the “New Concept” writing competition, which offers younger writers a more commercialized route to fame and literary success. - Ou Ning and Austin Woerner, 2015
The New Concept Writing Competition was launched in 1999, organised by 7 Chinese universities (Beijing University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, Nankai University, Shandong University, Xiamen University and Huadong Normal University) and Mengya journal/publishers in Shanghai, to identify and encourage new writers.
A history of the competition, written by Li Qigang 李其纲, editor of Mengya, was published in 2015. A selection of the prize-winning pieces was published in a 17-volume series.
1st Competition (1999)
2nd Competition (2000)
3rd Competition (2001)
4th Competition (2002)
5th Competition (2003)
6th Competition (2004)
7th Competition (2005)
8th Competition (2006)
9th Competition (2007)
10th Competition (2008)
11th Competition (2009)
12th Competition (2010)
13th Competition (2011)
14th Competition (2012)
15th Competition (2013)
16th Competition (2014)
17th Competition (2015)
18th Competition (2016)