How I alienated my grandmother

Congratulations to Kestrel’s very own award winning children’s story writer: Suzanne Main.

Suzanne, who is our accounts administrator, picked up the Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award at Storylines Margaret Mahy Day in late March for her children’s novel: How I alienated my grandmother.

Suzanne describes the book as a light-hearted adventure story for children aged eight-12 years.

It’s hugely exciting for Suzanne because along with the award comes a $1500 prize and publication by Scholastic New Zealand.

“It’s my big break, the book is now with Scholastic for publishing and at next year’s Margaret Mahy Day my book will be officially launched.”

Suzanne says her book took 10 months to write and is about 44,000 words long. “There are many hurdles to overcome writing a book but there’s nothing that beats writing ‘The End’,” she says.

That being said, Suzanne already has three more books on the go including the sequel to How I alienated my grandmother. The Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award is open to unpublished children’s book writers, who are New Zealand residents.

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