On Wednesday the 11th of November Sophie McKenzie, the award-winning author, made a visit to our college. It was a fantastic experience, as we all love her novels very much.

Earlier this year we wrote the beginning of our own book, about two young girls named Megan and Pearl who were both runaways from a local orphanage. We were looking forward to showing Sophie as we were very proud of it ourselves.

When we finally got to meet her, we were so excited about showing her OUR story! It was definitely worth it, as Sophie said it was great, and she really liked it. Of course only good authors give you tips, just like Sophie gave us, after all, you learn from your mistakes. Meeting Sophie gave us the confidence and encouragement to keep on writing and never give up. One of the best pieces of advice that we found on her website was to have fun whilst writing.

When we were offered the chance to write this article for the Swindon Advertiser we were thrilled and couldn’t stop smiling all day! We wrote this as soon as we could, and couldn’t wait to get on with it. This was a big challenge and a lot harder than we thought it would be, but once again we bring up a tip from Sophie’s website, to NEVER give up.

This leads us to the point where we can say thank you to all of the organisers who arranged this Festival, and the biggest thank you to, of course, the one and only Sophie McKenzie.

By Sophie Hanrahan, 12, and Anna Stephens, 12, St Joseph's Catholic College