Congratulations to Izzi Anderson (Rm 1) who came 4th, was published and invited to the Book Launch and a writers' event, and also to Nathan Stacey (Rm 11) whose story was published in the competition anthology. 
 Links to their stories can be found here: 'Fear' By Izzi, 'It's Hard to Stand Out' By Nathan.
Below is an interview with Izzi by the team at Young NZ Writers from their website, followed by Izzi's summary of the writers' event.
At the Young NZ Writers annual Day Out in June we caught up with Beyond Expectations finalist and contributor, Izzi Anderson a Y8 student from Raroa Intermediate in Johnsonville, who’d come all the way to Tauranga to participate in our workshop. She kindly agreed to answer some questions for us. Hi Izzi – thanks so much for joining us. 
So, you’ve come all this way; does that mean you hope to be a writer one day?
—I hope so. I’ve always considered that I’d like to write for a career, but I doubt my ability to concentrate long enough to write a book. Maybe I’ll do veterinary science…but writing is my dream.

How did you hear about the competition?
—I’m in an extension writing group at school and our teacher Miss Dunn told us about the competition and gave a presentation about the kinds of stories we could write. I really enjoy writing, especially horror and science fiction, so I thought I would enter the competition.

Why horror and sci-fi? What draws you to this genre?
—I feel it’s mainly about the books I’m reading. I’m currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee at school, but my favourite story of all time is The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud. It kept me up all might. It was really scary.

“I feel the books you read influence the stories you write.”— Izzi Anderson

Is this the first writing workshop you’ve attended?
—I went to another one once in Wellington. It was part of our extension writing class and we met some other New Zealand writers. One of them was Mandy Hager and there was a slam poet, too. It was almost as good at this one. I’m glad I convinced my parents to let me come to Tauranga to come to this one. It’s been really cool. I’m going to go back and show some things to my writing teacher, too. She’ll be so excited to see what I’ve learned.

So, you said you’re not sure if you have the concentration to write a novel? Does that mean you’d like to have a go?
I filled a lot of exercise books with nonsense stories when I was younger. In some ways I feel writing short stories is easier, but at the same time harder: you don’t have to spend so much time to write a short story, but you have to suggest what happened in a short amount of words. It’s the concept of show-not-tell; you don’t tell the readers what’s happening exactly, instead you suggest it.

Thanks so much for chatting with us, Izzi, and thanks for coming to our Day Out. [Please give our thanks to your teacher Miss Dunn for supporting our programme, too!]
Tauranga Young Readers and Writers Day Out   By Izzi A
Last month, on the 23rd of June, I flew to Tauranga for a Readers and Writers Day Out.
A month or so previously, I had entered a writing competition for Young NZ Writers. The best writing was to be put into an anthology entitled 'Beyond Expectations'. Two students from Raroa had their stories chosen for the anthology. I came 4th (Highly Commended) in all of NZ for Year 8!
All entrants were invited to Tauranga for the Young Readers and Writers Day Out, and I was lucky enough to go. There I met some famous NZ authors and they gave talks on how to make your writing even better.
The talks were:
  • The Must Haves Of Short Story Writing
  • Characters & Conflict
  • What Editors Look For

I had a really great time learning new ways to take my writing to the next level. All the talks were interesting and engaging and I learnt so much!
I encourage you to check out the Young NZ Writers website (youngnzwriters.weebly.com) if you are interested in entering a writing competition; there are a lot of opportunities!