Posted on 14 May
129 Leeds College of Building (LCB) students’ short stories have been published in this year’s Young Writers anthology.
The theme for this year’s collection was ‘Stranger Sagas’, students were invited to ‘explore the strange’ and write a short story made up of 100 words.
LCB had the largest number of stories selected for publication by any college and even beat last year’s tally of 83.
Young Writers was founded in 1991 to inspire and encourage creative writing, offering young people the opportunity to share their voices and imaginations.
After learning he’d become a newly published writer, Level 1 Multi-Skills student Erem Kudret Albayrak read his story ‘The Coup’ to his entire English class.
His story was inspired by the 2016 Turkish coup d’état attempt which took place in several Turkish municipalities, including his home city of Istanbul.
Speaking about why he felt compelled to draw on such personal experience, Erem said:
“It’s something that affected my country, so I wanted to put that story out there to show that people can be brave and overcome hardships.
“I’d like to thank my teacher Jen [Oates], who’s helped me a lot. I never thought I’d be this comfortable writing stories in English. The whole of LCB has helped me very much.”
‘Stranger Sagas’ was published by the Young Writers publishing house on 16 March 2026 and is available online.
Five of our published short stories:
The Coup
15th July 2017, Istanbul, Turkey. It was a normal day.
However, the Turkish army had some betrayers, and there was a leader who wanted to start a coup and control Turkey. So what they did was, eight fighter jets got sent out and attacked government buildings. Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, spoke on television and told people to be brave. All of the men marched to the capital and defended the country and the people of Turkey. We found out that the soldiers got manipulated, and they cried and wanted to die because of it.
Erem Kudret Albayrak (16)
The Fridge
I moved into my new flat, empty except for one old and battered fridge with rust creeping up from the bottom. I turned it on to see if it would work. Surprisingly, it did. I opened the stiff door, and I jolted back as I saw a little village with tiny green people the same size as grapes.
They were advancing as a civilisation rapidly. In only ten minutes, they had a massive city far more advanced than our own.
But something happened and they started blowing themselves up.
Cameron Hostetler (17)
The Stormy Creature
It was a dark, gloomy night with the rumbles and crashing of thunder and lightning. The shadows were lit up by the lightning. I could just hear thudding outside my house, the terrifying scraping of branches blowing against my window.
Then I heard a screech of a creature in the garden below my bedroom window. I noticed a slender figure.
I turned away, got my phone, then went back to the window, and it was gone, out of thin air.
Then I heard a thud behind me. I turned round. The lightning lit the slender creature at the door of my bedroom stared.
Deacon Barker (16)
Men Vs Robots
Instead of blood, there were wires. Only 17, fighting in WWIII, at the front line, shooting enemy soldiers, I built the courage to run through No-Man’s-Land and as I was running, I could see sparks and wires all over the floor. I soon realised I wasn’t fighting other people, I was fighting robots. As I turned around to run back, I saw spaceships flying all over, and as I got out of the trench, I managed to get to a house. On the news, I saw that robots had taken over the entire world within hours.
Dylan Binns (16)
The Copy
It was a dark and stormy night, exploring the depths of the quiet woods. Suddenly, something darted in the sky and smashed into the ground. There was this luminous glow coming from whatever growled. It looked like it wasn’t from Earth. I went to touch it and it suddenly opened. I fell backwards. A creature crept out covered in slime and it had these bloodshot eyes. It stumbled towards me and it took one look at me. It transformed into me, like an identical copy. The creature picked me up and put me in its capsule!
Archie Rawson (17)
Fancy yourself as a future published author? Come study with us and join our LCB family. Find a course that works for you right here.
