A local student has been selected by a well-known author as one of the winners of a national writing competition.
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Japneet Kaur, a Year 5 student at Macquarie Anglican Grammar School, said she was "surprised" when she heard the news that she was among the winners of the Little Scribe writing competition.
"I was happy, but I was so surprised because I didn't really expect to get it," she said.
In 2023, approximately 35,000 Year 1 to Year 6 students from across Australia participated in the Little Scribe writing workshop. Japneet was among 16 author's choice award winners for her novel Dangerous Wishes.
"It was about a girl who had a weird case of amnesia and she didn't remember anything about herself and she found herself in a bus in the middle of nowhere with people she didn't know about," she said.
"But the main thing is that she kept making wishes, but those wishes weren't really thought about."
Japneet said she likes writing adventure stories, inspired by her favourite books including the Percy Jackson series and The School for Good and Evil.
"I think it's a good way to get my imagination out," she said.
Through the Little Scribe program, students get to hear from well known Australian authors like Jackie French and Andrew Daddo and participate in livestreamed workshops alongside other schools across the country.
Japneet's novel was selected by children's book author Tim Harris, best known for his comedy series including Toffle Towers, Mr Bambuckle's Remarkables and Exploding Endings.
Macquarie Anglican Grammar School Stage 3 teacher Katrina Tonkin said the workshops were a good way to get students to engage with what they had been learning in class about creative writing.
"Essentially it's a writing festival so we can tune in live, which is great,"
"We get to interact with different authors or we can watch the recording and then they teach us different writing techniques and they give us activities to complete in class.
"So it worked well because for that term, we looked at imaginative writing."
Ms Tonkin said she was "so proud" when she heard Japneet had won an author's choice award.
"I know how hard she's been working as well ... she's been wanting to improve on her writing so she works really hard and she absolutely deserves it," she said.
