Fifth-grader Tabitha Ritchie has until July to perfect her autograph as she will be attending her first book signing in Detroit, Michigan.<\/p>\n
The 10-year-old student at Mary Star of the Sea Catholic School beat out thousands of entrants to win the international young author's competition, sponsored by the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. <\/p>\n
Tabitha's story, which is entitled, "My Most Unforgettable Experience," struck a chord with a panel of regional and international judges, who loved her real-life account of reuniting with her dog, Fluffy, which she was forced to give up for adoption six years earlier. <\/p>\n
Her story will be published in an anthology, entitled, "The Spirit Within: Voices of Young Authors," to be published this summer and made available in bookstores around the world.<\/p>\n
President of the AKA's Freeport chapter, Julie Glover, said the object of the young author programme is to encourage a greater love of reading and writing among primary school students in two categories: grades two to three, and grades four to six.<\/p>\n
Approximately 20 students from Grand Bahama also submitted entries as well as thousands of students from the United States, Germany, Japan, Korea and Bermuda. <\/p>\n
At a press conference at the girl's school yesterday, Mrs. Glover told reporters that Tabitha's story was scrutinized at both the regional and national levels last year. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the AKA announced that Tabitha had emerged the winner for the grades four to six category.<\/p>\n
"To be a published writer at age 10 is a bee in anybody's bonnet and I want to congratulate her and [her principal] and her teacher and anyone else who encouraged her. Of course, we cannot overlook the fact that she has very interested parents," Mrs. Glover said.<\/p>\n
Tabitha's father, Martin Ritchie, said he was ecstatic about her win. <\/p>\n
"Me and her mother are very happy for her and her accomplishments [given] that she is only 10 years old and already a published author," Mr. Ritchie said. "It says a lot for her. We help her a lot in her schoolwork. The teachers of Mary Star [also] show how good they are in teaching their students. I hope that this will help her to move on with more writings."<\/p>\n
Tabitha, who hopes to publish other works in the near future, and is also considering a career in writing, was also ecstatic.<\/p>\n
"I feel very happy about winning because there were so many children who entered this competition and I won," Tabitha said. <\/p>\n
"My inspiration comes from my family and my dog which I wrote about and how we were reunited after six years." <\/p>\n
By: Courtnee Romer, The Bahama Journal<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Move over JK Rowling, The Bahamas has a young new author appearing on the literary scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}