Young writer makes her mark in contest

Becoming an author has always been a dream for Awhina Pearce.

Now thanks to an international writing competition, she could be well on the way.

The Matamata College Year 10 student was last week presented with an award after placing fourth at the International Future Problem Solving finals in the scenario writing competition.

Awhina said writing has always something she’s wanted to do.

A teacher introduced her to scenario writing, which is writing a scene in the future about an issue that could happen, while also relating to a topic.

The subject Awhina selected was called ocean soup and she wrote about the waste and litter that is building up in the ocean and how it’s affecting the wild life. She had a word limit of 1500.

‘‘I got right up to the limit and I went a bit over so I had to go back and delete a few words.’’

Awhina said it was awesome experience to write something for an international

been competition. ‘‘I didn’t think too much of it at the time, I thought I could do well but I didn’t really think it would go to the internationals.’’

The competition first starts on a national level before selected pieces are sent to the international competition.

Awhina said it felt unreal when she was told she had placed fourth.

‘‘It didn’t really sink in. I got home and my mum told me that she’d got a phone call from my teacher saying that I had come fourth.’’

She said it didn’t become real until later on. She was presented with a trophy at school assembly last Thursday.

Awhina placed second at the national competition last year, along with fellow Matamata College student Talia Parker who placed third.

The top three stories were sent on to compete with writers from Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, Turkey, Britain and the United States.