TAVISTOCK Subscription Library is inviting budding young authors to take part in a writing competition this autumn. The writing competition is aimed at secondary school students in the Tavistock area, and is being held to get more people interested in the subscription library. The age group for entries is from 11 to 18 years, for students in full-time education within the Tavistock area, including students living in the Tavistock area but attending nearby secondary schools. The title of the work is 'Recently in a field by the road leading into Peter Tavy, someone found a metal wedge for keeping a wheel on a small carriage, a love token, 12 George III, Gearge IV and William IV silver coins and a King George IV 1822 gold sovereign. Who dropped them? How did they get there? What is the story?' The written article should be approximately 700 words of factual writing, not poetry or fiction, and must be original work. The judges, who would include members of the library committee and other invited writers, will decide if the entry is within the spirit of the competition and each entry will be looked at with its own merits as to whether it fulfilled the catchment condition. The winning article will be published in The Diary and in the next library newsletter and the winner will be given a year's free membership of the subscription library. There will be three prizes comprising £100 for first place, £50 for second and £25 for third to be spent on books or an appropriate literary-related online programme or Kindle book to be considered by the committee if the applicant would rather not receive a paper-based book as the prize. Tavistock Subscription Library, housed in the corner of Guildhall Square next to the town's museum, was founded in 1799 by a group of men, including John Taylor — a 19-year-old engineer from Norwich who had come to Tavistock to manage a local copper and tin mine and it was him who built the Tavistock Canal at the beginning of the 19th century. The closing date for competition entries will be December 31 and entries can be made online at the library website http://www.tavistocksubscriptionlibrary.co.uk">www.tavistocksubscriptionlibrary.co.uk where there is a dedicated page explaining all the rules, or by email to [email protected]">[email protected] or by post to The Hon Secretary, Tavistock Subscription Library, Court Gate, Tavistock, PL19 0AE.