Xiaohongshu Opens Third Nearby Writing Competition Across 45 Cities With Blancpain Literary Award Partnership
Xiaohongshu's third Nearby Writing Competition launched September 1, spanning 110 submission points in 45 cities and partnering with Blancpain's literary award from September 12.
Xiaohongshu (小红书) opened submissions for its third Nearby Writing Competition (身边写作大赛) on September 1, inviting users, brands, universities, and public spaces to set their own writing prompts around everyday "life small topics" (生活小题). The competition accepts essays, poetry, and comics with no word count or format restrictions, and offers observation prompts covering commute routes, parents' habits, body parts, and minor ailments.
The competition runs across 110 observation points and submission entrances in 45 cities globally, with offline drop-off locations at Hema (盒马超市) supermarkets, McDonald's restaurants, and Tiaohai taverns. Dedicated "Everyone's Writing Houses" (大家的写作屋) have opened in Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Wuhan. International offline touchpoints include locations in New York, Paris, and Tokyo.
The competition features a "Non-Fiction" unit and a new "Life Observation Plan" (生活观察计划) special unit. From September 12, Xiaohongshu partnered with the Blancpain Ideal Country Literary Award (宝珀理想国文学奖), establishing reading points in over 40 bookstores nationwide. A second Xiaohongshu Literary Festival is planned for late November in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, with literary walks, author talks, book markets, exhibitions, and concerts on the programme.
Since the competition's 2024 launch, it has received over 50,000 submissions and drawn more than 10,000 participating creators, with dozens of authors going on to achieve publication.
The competition's structure — distributing submission points through supermarkets, fast-food chains, and independent bookstores — reflects how Xiaohongshu has been working to translate its online community into durable physical presence. By opening prompt-setting to ordinary users alongside institutional partners, the platform positions amateur writing not as a peripheral activity but as a content format with editorial weight, credentialled here by an association with an established literary prize.
