ALL IN A DAY’S WORK FOR STUDENT AUTHORS

A TEAM of clever Gold Coast students are celebrating a successful wordsmith challenge for cancer research – writing entire novels in 24 hours.

More than 100 Somerset College wordsmiths have taken part in the writing challenge National Write A Book In A Day, an initiative raising funds for The Kids’ Cancer Project.

The nine teams, with students from Years 7 to 12, wrote, illustrated, and bound novels in under nine hours, and contributed funds towards the national Kids’ Cancer Project.

Year 9 students Niamh Rogers and Amy Barry said despite the stress, they “enjoyed every moment” writing 6000 words about an army general, weather forecaster, a boarding school and mermaids.

“We had a lot of weird requirements to meet that were set by The Kids’ Cancer Project – so it was an odd story but so much fun to write,” Niamh said.

“We centred it around trying to solve coral bleaching with the help of a weather forecaster and a boarding school student.

“We love the fact our book was helping to fundraise for charity.”

Somerset College wordsmiths co-ordinator Dr Michael Brohier said the teams had to fundraise $310 to apply for the “challenging” competition.

“It was an excellent opportunity for the students to develop their collaborative skills while helping other young people,” he said.

“The finished novels will now be delivered to hospitals in Australia to read to children undergoing treatment.”

This year marks the fourth time the college has participated in the fundraising event.

The Australia-wide initiative has collectively raised more than $1.7 million since 2009.