For the second year in a row, young Ardmona writer Lila Plunkett has won first prize in the prestigious Furphy Literary Award junior short story section.
Her powerful story Ash and Embers is a fast-paced and thrilling account of a family fleeing from a raging bushfire. At the centre of the story is a young girl forced to leave her home and all her treasured memories behind. It's a story told at breakneck speed with conviction and tremendous skill.
Lila, 12, has been writing stories ever since she learned to put pen to paper.
She said her winning story Ash and Embers was sparked by the memory of a bushfire near her grandparents’ home at Wodonga.
“I was in Prep and quite young at the time, but I remember it being quite scary,” Lila said.
“I just imagined what it would be like to lose everything in a bushfire,” she said.
Lila said she wrote whenever she could and had filled several notebooks at home with story ideas.
“I just sit down with pen and paper when I get home from school. And I always take a notebook with me when I go out,” she said.