Caitlin Moran is a legend. An absolute bone fide, real-deal legend. Few writers capture the chaos, comedy and contradictions of modern life quite like Caitlin. Her voice is so distinctive. So sharp, you'll cut your fingers on it.

Whether she's writing about feminism, fame, friendship or the messy business of growing up, she's a force - fierce, funny, and unapologetically honest. 

I love her story. As a working-class kid from Liverpool, who was Junior Reporter for the Southport Visiter newspapers at age 13 and wanted to be Kate Adie when I grew up, I see her. Caitlin, the eldest of eight children, was home-educated on a council estate in Wolverhampton. She was a published author at the age of 16 and has been writing for The Times since 1992, winning a raft of British Press Awards along the way. Oh and since her first book The Chronicles of Narmo in 1992, she's written another seven books - from How to Be a Woman to her novels and sharp essay collections, she has become one of the most unmistakable voices in modern writing. 

And now, as if we couldn't love her any more, she’s turning her attention to the next generation.

The BSME Young Writers' Prize

The British Society of Magazine Editors recently announced the launch of the BSME Young Writers' Prize with Caitlin Moran - which is now open for entries. It's a new annual award designed to discover and support exceptional young writing talent aged 18-25 from across the UK. The Prize specifically targets young people who show real promise but lack the connections or financial resources typically needed to break into journalism. 

We caught up with Caitlin to talk about her journey, the power of finding your voice - and why this prize could change everything.

You’ve said you “won your career in a competition.” Can you tell us that story – and why it inspired you to create this prize?

Yes - I won my career in a competition. Winning the Observer Young Reporter of the Year in 1990 basically rewired my brain. First of all - they invited me! A competition means, if you’re, say, on a council estate in Wolverhampton - so far from London, and the media, you might as well be on the Moon - it’s like getting an invitation from Those London People: they want you! They want you!

They will not ignore your submission - your hopeful little guess at what they might want to print. They asked for it. And then, when I won, they printed my winning entry - in the paper! - and I could literally feel new synapses forming, in my head. The day before it was published, I was just a normal person, with a normal name. The day it was published - I was, officially, a writer. And I did not have a name - I had a byline. The world was different. My world was different. I was a byline now.

When you think back to yourself at 18, what did reading and writing give you that nothing else could?

Reading and writing, at 18 - it’s all I had! We had no money, we never went anywhere, or did anything. But we had the library - and in the library, there were whole rooms full of people who did go to places, and do things. I had all of history and time and gossip and adventure and love waiting for me at Warstones Library, Warstones Road. And once you love books - once you thrill to picking one up - sooner or later, you wonder what it would be like if you were a writer, too. If you were the kind of person who started talking, on the page, and other people listened. Well, read. Unless it was an audiobook. Then they’d listen, I guess.

What do you look for when you read a piece of writing by a young person? What makes something jump off the page?

When I’m reading something by another writer, I’m looking for the writing equivalent of … eye-contact? The feeling someone is looking me square in the eye and telling me something as truthfully as they can. The biggest mistake you can make as a writer is thinking you should be writing the kind of thing you’re supposed to write, and writing it how you’re supposed to be writing. No! Your subject and your tone has to be you! That’s how you become a “proper” writer - by doing the hard, truthful work of making sure, with every sentence, it’s you you you, however weird or new or shocking or inappropriate or unfamiliar you might be. Chat GPT can make endless pages of writing that looks like “writing.” Only you can do you. That’s your magic power - your bag of gold. I want to see the world through your eyes. I want to hear your voice. I want - eye-contact.

Lots of young people worry they’re “not good enough” to call themselves writers. What would you say to someone hesitating about entering the prize?

If you think you’re “not good enough” to be a writer - then, basically, I am sorry you’ve had to do GCSE English in the 21st century. From what I’ve seen of it, it seems designed by robot demons to make you doubt yourself. And, here’s the thing - however much 90% of your brain thinks you’re “not good enough” - however many times your essays have been marked as “wrong” - if you are a writer, deep down, there’s a little, burning, hard-core 10% nugget of self-belief that saying, “Fuck it - I know I’m good enough. I know this is what I am.” Listen to that little buried voice, and not the other 90%. That’s the sign you’re a writer.

This prize includes a substantial cash award as well as mentorship. Why was it important that the prize actually frees up time for the winner to write?

CASH! The alpha and omega of everything is “bitch gotta pay rent.” You simply can’t be a starving writer, earning no money from your work, because - you’ll actually starve, then die. Writers need potatoes, and knickers, and bus-fare. That’s why the cash element of the prize is so important - I could not have spent years writing “as a hobby” when I was a teenager. I needed to be paid whilst I honed my craft, and learned all the tricks. And I was. In the 21st century, I know it’s harder - and that’s why we’ve worked so hard to make sure there are multiple payment opportunities, and bursaries, in the Prize.

We often hear that reading is the beginning of writing. Were there books or writers who first made you think, “I want to do this”?

Reading IS the beginning of writing - it’s like a digestive system, I think. Other people’s words go into your eyes, you digest them, and then YOUR words come out the other end. The people I was drawn to were always first-person writers - in fiction, I loved The Diary Of Adrian Mole and Jane Eyre, who were both, in very different ways, dealing with how shit it is to be a teenager. I loved Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams - for being both clever and funny at the same time, whilst also literally inventing worlds. And the local library stocked all the “collected columns” books of every Fleet Street columnist at that time: Jilly Cooper, Alan Coren, Katherine Whitehorn, Sue Limb. There is a LOT to be said for reading everything written by the people who have the kind of job you’d like. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

If you want to be a columnist on a magazine or newspaper, read ALL the columns. You’ll see what EVERYONE writes - so you’ll know to avoid it, because it’s “done.” You’ll start to notice what they DON’T write - thus giving you an idea of what YOUR gap in the market is.

And, quite often, you’ll read something you disagree with so wildly, you basically have to write a reply to it. And THAT’s how you end up coming up with 52 ideas a year for a weekly column. There. Now you know my secret.

What advice would you give an 18-year-old today who dreams of becoming a writer but doesn’t know where to start?

My advice - mainly, the above. Be practical about it. Which would be your ideal publications to write for? If you don’t even know, start there. Read them all. Start having enjoyable fantasies about what YOU would write for them.

A really big tip is: learn to tell the difference between something YOU would like to write, and something someone ELSE actually wants to read. I can’t tell you the amount of impassioned, serious 1000 word pieces I’ve written - only to read it back, and realise it’s basically me moaning, and should have been a diary entry, instead.

And then I’ve thought about what a reader would ACTUALLY like to read, and written something tighter and funnier and more entertaining about being a very competitive bird-watcher, instead.

What excites you most about reading the entries for the prize this year?

What excites me? Oh, the certain knowledge we’re going to find amazing writers. I don’t know exactly HOW they’ll be amazing, but I know when I read their stuff, it’s going to be like they just walked into the room and started talking. I want someone whose writing feels like talking. Brilliant, edited, tight, focussed talking. But talking. Really, there isn’t any such thing as “being a writer”.

You’re a THINKER who just then happens to write their thoughts down.

Finally, if you could give every young writer one piece of encouragement before they hit “submit”, what would it be?

My encouragement is two things.

The first: don’t worry if you think your life is too boring for you to talk about yourself. You don’t need to be leading a fascinating life to write fascinating things. It’s how you write about it, not what you write. Genuinely, if you’re a great writer, you should be able to find a way to write 1000 words about which is your favourite kind of lightbulb. Do you think the huge see-thru ones with the visible, golden filament are really elegant, and modern? Or do you HATE the fact they burn your retina, and that the manufacturers were so VAIN they wanted to show off their lightbulb mechanisms? Do you think the little round ones are jolly, and the long, candle-shaped ones look a bit stuck-up, and mean? If you had the choice, would you have NO lightbulbs - and just jolly disco strips of LED lights, instead? Nothing is boring if you come at it from the right angle.

And, my second encouragement:  deep, deep down, this prize is for you if you know you’re a writer. If you know you’re thinking and writing and saying things no-one else is. If you’re bursting to show everyone what you’ve got. Sure, you can be worried you might not be the best, or that you’re too different - but in the very heart of you, you know: you are a writer. You’ve just been waiting for an invitation to make it your job. Well, here it is. I’m your invitation. Come and make this your job.

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The BSME Young Writers’ Prize is open for entries now, and if there’s one thing Caitlin makes clear, it’s this: you don’t need permission to be a writer - just the courage to start.

So, what are you waiting for? If you’re 18–25 and have something to say, this could be your moment. If you know someone who's 18-25 and you think they could fit the bill, share this with them. Shout it from the rooftops.

To find out more, read the LoveReading feature about the Prize.

And then go to the BSME website to enter.

To read more from Caitlin Moran, explore her books here.