Now they’re published authors
⭐️HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW⭐️
- Two teens from Yukon and New Brunswick won the Ripple Foundation’s Kids Write 4 Kids contest this year.
- Their stories have been published.
- All proceeds from their books are being donated to charity.
- Keep reading to find out what inspired them. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
Two Canadian teens from Yukon and New Brunswick are published authors after winning a national creative writing contest.
The Kids Write 4 Kids (KW4K) contest by the Ripple Foundation is an annual competition where kids in Grades 4 to 8 can submit their creative writing pieces.
The submissions have to be less than 5,000 words.
The winners get their stories published and all of the money earned from book sales is donated to a charity of their choice.
Roy Oborne and Taym Saffar are the winners of this year’s contest.
They told CBC Kids News about their stories and how it felt to win.
Name:
Roy Oborne
Hometown:
Dakwäkäda (Haines Junction), Yukon
Age:
12
Roy loves spending time outdoors, fishing, hunting and boating with his family. (Image submitted by Christine Oborne)
Roy’s life in the Yukon
Roy Oborne lives in a small town of about 680 people in Yukon.
“Everybody knows everybody, that’s the best way I can describe it,” said Roy about his community.
Roy loves anything outdoorsy, like fishing, hunting and birding. He also plays hockey and swims.
He said his favourite book genre is survival stories, such as Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.
“The story’s really gripping,” he said. “It’s hard for me to put those books down.”
That’s where he got his inspiration for his own book, One in the Wilderness, which won the KW4K contest.
Roy enjoys spending his time outdoors and helping out on his family’s farm. (Image submitted by Christine Oborne)
A story about a grizzly bear encounter
One in the Wilderness is about a boy who goes on a river trip with his uncle, travelling from Haines Junction to Dawson City.
On the way, the two get separated by a storm and the boy gets stalked by a giant grizzly bear.
Read an excerpt from One in the Wilderness:
How Roy found out he was a winner
Roy was at his school’s awards night in June when he found out he won the contest.
“Everybody stood up,” he told CBC Kids News. “Everybody cheered.”
Coming from a small town, he said his family and his community were really proud of him for winning a national contest.
“We all thought, ‘The little town of Haines Junction did it,’” Roy said.
Name:
Taym Saffar
Hometown:
Rothesay, New Brunswick
Age:
14
Taym likes spending his time reading, writing and playing piano. (Image submitted by Farah Saffar)
Taym’s life in New Brunswick
Taym Saffar moved from Calgary, Alberta, to Rothesay, New Brunswick, in the summer of 2022.
He likes playing the piano, biking and running. He also enjoys cooking scrambled eggs and spaghetti.
Taym loves to read a wide variety of genres, but his favourites are science fiction and fantasy. He is currently reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series.
“I leap around genres and read whatever appeals to me at the moment,” he told CBC Kids News.
Taym has been writing since he was nine. From prose to poetry, he likes taking his thoughts and ideas and turning them into stories.
“Bringing your characters to life and creating worlds with a simple pen and paper, just writing up a storm. It’s my favourite,” he said.
Taym loves the beautiful scenery in New Brunswick, saying it is different from Calgary, where he previously lived. (Image submitted by Farah Saffar)
A story about a thought experiment gone wrong
Taym said his book, The Eternal Box, was inspired by Robert Nozick’s 1970s thought experiment, the experience machine.
The story follows a machine called the eternal box that creates infinite time and space, where one can experience whatever they want, for as long as they want.
Selda, the main character, tries to understand and oppose the machine that has taken the world by storm.
Read an excerpt from The Eternal Box:
How Taym found out he was a winner
One day after school in June, Taym’s parents excitedly told him he had won the contest. He was shocked.
“I was like, ‘This is not happening, I did not win this,’” Taym said. It took him a couple of days to take in the news.
He had never won a contest before, and said he was proud and excited about being published.
Donating the prize money
Every year, the winners of the contest choose a charity to donate the proceeds from their book sales to.
The winners of last year’s contest donated $606.34 to the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada.
This year, Roy and Taym chose to donate their earnings to the Canadian Cancer Society. The exact amount of the donation will be confirmed in 2024.
The charity is important to Roy because he recently lost family and community members to cancer.
While Taym hasn’t experienced a personal loss, he said he has family members who are susceptible to cancer and he thought it was an important cause.
Advice for other young writers
The advice Taym wants to give to other young writers is to not be afraid to start.
“Put words on the paper and see what happens,” he said. “Anybody can be an author, there are no age requirements.”
Roy suggests kids who are interested in writing remember to never give up and push through.
“I guarantee they’ll get tired at any point or at some point,” he said. “Just push through that and work hard. It’ll pay off.”
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