Words & Art Competition 2016

At the end of Novem­ber 2016, I had the hon­our of vis­it­ing Pen­rith High School to meet Hellen Jiang and her class­mates in Year Nine. Hellen won the senior divi­sion of the NSW Pre­mier’s Read­ing Chal­lenge Words & Art Com­pe­ti­tion for 2016. A tru­ly extra­or­di­nary young writer from an amaz­ing school. Con­grat­u­la­tions Hellen!

Teacher Librar­i­an Nathan Wilcox just emailed to say: “Your author vis­it to Pen­rith High real­ly inspired our Year 9 stu­dents. The stu­dents were total­ly absorbed as demon­strat­ed by the mul­ti­tude of ques­tions you answered thought­ful­ly and astute­ly. It can be hard to engage aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly selec­tive stu­dents at times, how­ev­er, you had them think­ing and inter­est­ed. The hall was buzzing when you fin­ished.” Well, I was buzzing too! 

More media cov­er­age here:

Isabell Petrinic, “Fan­ta­sy author pre­dicts big future as a nov­el­ist for young sto­ry adap­ta­tion win­ner Hellen Jiang,” Pen­rith Press, 5 Decem­ber 2016