Ordskælv is an award-winning organization founded in 2009 that works to promote generations of strong writers, curious readers and critical thinkers. For nearly two decades, Ordskælv has worked nationally and internationally with literature, participation and artistic transformative power through writing and reading programs in Denmark and the Nordic region, through heart-cause initiatives where children, young people and people in vulnerable positions have transformed their own experiences into literary works, anthologies, artistic manifestations and contributions to public discourse.

The Nordic Region's Largest Youth-Driven Communities

Today, Ordskælv has sister organizations in Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Together we operate the Nordic region's largest youth-driven writing and reading communities, reaching over 5,000 children and young people each year. And through our global network Write Our World, which we co-founded in 2013, we reach over 1 million children and young people annually.

Ordskælv's model and method is built on one-to-one mentorship, project-based learning and creative communities that change the world one publication at a time. Ordskælv is behind the book publication KH Children, which received top marks in Altinget, Poetry Bus, which received the Klods Hans Prize from the Society for Children's Literature IBBY Denmark for "...with enthusiasm and innovative thinking, making a special and extraordinary effort to promote knowledge of children's and youth literature". Furthermore, the project Word Connection, which is Denmark's largest Sustainable Development Goals project connecting young people and literature, and 'Word Berries', which empowers children to expand language with new words that don't exist but should.

Ordskælv is both a development platform for literature, a production company, a publishing house and a consultancy.

Ordskælv develops strategic partnerships, economic and organizational frameworks and enables the power of literature to be translated into concrete communities, programs and social change.

Youth Democratic Leadership

In 2026, Ordskælv Association was established as an association that continues Ordskælv's practice in independent democratic organizing, where young people not only participate in activities, but define, organize and lead them. The association grows out of Ordskælv, and the association's methodological backbone is Ordskælv's award-winning model and method, which connects individual creative power with collective process and public impact. The method moves from idea and shared inquiry through recruitment, writing and reading programs, editing and artistic production to dissemination, partnerships and public dialogue.

Literature as Working Method

This means that literature is not solely an artistic end product. It is also a working method where young people train their ability to formulate positions, listen to others, negotiate meaning, take responsibility and translate ideas into collective action.

Each year, Ordskælv Association gathers new young people who are introduced to model, method, community building and artistic project development through Ordskælv's Community School. From there, the young people develop and lead annual community and democracy-building writing programs based on a heart-cause that they themselves help define.