Year 10 student takes home overall winner at Armadale Young Writers' Awards

A budding local writer has taken out the overall winner award at the City of Armadale’s Young Writers’ Awards on Friday 1 September.

Year 10 student, Rania Arif, was presented with a $50 book voucher, a trophy and a certificate. Her name was also engraved on the Perpetual Armadale Young Writers’ Awards Trophy.

Along with winning overall winner, Rania was also presented with $200 for first place in the Years 9 and 10 Category for the second year running.

City of Armadale Mayor Henry Zelones OAM, JP said that this year the award attracted over 200 entries from students across the City.

“The competition attracted a high calibre of entries from very talented young people.

“There are many creative and talented young writers in our community. This award is designed to inspire and help develop them, and it is encouraging to see so many of them get involved in the competition.

“The City is committed to helping young people achieve their dreams. It is important that we support young people in education, sports and the arts including writing.

“I congratulate Rania on being named overall winner this year and first place in her category.

“Rania won first place in her category last year and I am pleased to see that she has continued with her writing this year. This is what the award is about, inspiring young creative minds to develop their writing and I am pleased to see that is happening.

“I hope the award inspires all the place-getters to continue to develop their gift for writing in the future.”

In each category, first place winners were awarded $200, while second place received $150 and third place $100. All place getters also received a certificate, a trophy and a copy of the anthology of place-getters stories.

At the presentation ceremony, council dignitaries, the award winners and their families were addressed by award winning Western Australian Children’s Author Elaine Forrestal, who also ran three free workshops for prospective entrants in May.

The Armadale Young Writer’s Award is an annual competition that has been run by the City of Armadale since 2011.

The competition is open to school aged children and teenagers, from years 3 to 12 who reside or attend school in the City, and is divided into five categories based on age group.

Works have to be in prose only and be no longer than 2000 words.

The winners of the 2017 Armadale Young Writers’ Awards:

Category - Years 3 & 4

1st Pacey Van Burgel
The Giant Mystery

2nd Serene Benny
The Dark Corner

3rd Jaxon Flockhart
The Day the Honey Took Over the World

Category - Years 5 & 6

1st Cyra Winter
Fox Tale

2nd Kyra Bredenhof
Dream Weaver

3rd Ella Mackie
Mars on the Horizon

Category Years 7 & 8

1st Berwan Dekker
All This for the Truth

2nd Timothy Armstrong
Mwisho Kusimama

3rd David Poppe
The Laurel Wreath

Category - Years 9 & 10

1st Rania Arif
Watch the Skies

2nd Eli-Tshiololoka Mwambi
Captain Demaryius

3rd Meleane Jane Havea
Accept It

Category - Years 11 & 12

1st Claire Hart
Past Present Future

2nd Isabelle Bizjak
The Fisherman

3rd Elyse-Jaine Begley
The Reveal

Overall Winner

1st Rania Arif
Watch the Skies

The City has collated the stories submitted by all place getters into a book which is available for loan from the City of Armadale Libraries.