THE award winning book Bitter Sixteen by Stefan Mohamed a writer, poet and musician from Knighton will be published on March 15. Stefan, now 26, wrote the book ten years ago and when he was 16. He won £5000 and an e-publishing contract for the inaugural Sony Reader Award category for unpublished writers in the 2010 Dylan Thomas Prize. Stefan went on to graduate from Kingston University's creative writing program with a first class degree and the creative writing prize for his year.

Bitter Sixteen is about a dysfunctional Welsh teenager called Stanly, who develops superpowers on his sixteenth birthday - the ability to fly and to move things with his mind. He also has a talking dog called Daryl who is a massive Humphrey Bogart fan. He lives in a small Welsh town that shares quite a few similarities with Knighton, although it goes by a different name.

Stefan who is a former pupil of Whitton Primary School and John Beddoes school in Presteigne said "I finished the first draft of the book when I was 16, and I'm 26 now. I have written more books since I first finished Bitter Sixteen - Salt Publishing also purchased its two sequels, the release dates for those are forthcoming. I'm re-drafting them at the moment. I have also completed some standalone novels, and am working on another separate trilogy" He added "It's not uncommon for the road to be publication to be long, bumpy and frustrating! There are so many different variables, and lots of things have to align. If you'd told me when I first won the prize in 2010 that it would take nearly five more years to get published, I might have been tempted to give up, but with hindsight I'm glad it's taken this long. It's meant I've had enough time to get the book in really good shape, and to find a publisher who really understands and respects what I'm trying to do. All credit for that must go to my agent Ben Illis, he's the business guy!"

The publication date is March 15 but it can be pre-ordered at the moment via Amazon, Hive or people's local bookshops. There is also a launch event in Bristol on March 19, at Blackwell's bookshop on Park Street.

Stefan currently works in Bristol as a copywriter, sub-editor and proof reader.