Eleven grade three students at Fireside School in Cochrane can now add 'Published Author' to their list of credentials.

The students were part of a National Short-Story Competition put on by British Columbia based Publishing House - Polar Expressions Publishing.

Fireside School Teacher, Allyson Billings isn't a stranger to the annual Short-Story Competition. She says that adding this fun, and exciting element to the grade three literacy curriculum really helps the students to develop their writing skills.

"I usually start a short-story narrative unit in early November," says Billings. "We go through parts of a short story. How we have a beginning, middle and end, I teach them about character development, and setting and plot. I give them feedback and we work together on ideas and editing."

Billings says that once the kids have some hands-on practice applying the writing concepts, they start working towards independent work to be submitted. She says there are some key guidelines that the applicants need to follow. 

"The story has to be a maximum of 450 words, and an adult or anyone older cannot help them with ideas, spelling or editing," explains Billings.

Nineteen students in Billings' class submitted their short stories to Polar Expressions Publishing for consideration in December of 2020. Billings says that one month into the new year they received some exciting news.

"In February we got a letter from the publishing company stating that 11 of them made it through the first round of judging," says Billings. "That means that all 11 of them will be published into a book together. The book that they'll be in is called 'In Space'  and it's stories from kids from Kindergarten to grade four all across Canada."

The 11 soon-to-be Published Authors, qualify for the next round of judging, and have a chance at a first, second and third place National award.

Billings says that she has participated in the annual Short-Story Competition with her students for about six years now. She says that the timeline is ideal, and builds excitement with the class all year round.

"I like it because the timing is really neat. We kind of spend the Fall working towards building writing skills, and we get this whole narrative writing unit," says Billings. "Now the excitement is building. Now we know that we have 11 kids that are making it to this round, and then by June we'll find out if anyone makes it further and the book arrives. The book always arrives before the end of the year so it's kind of a neat wrap-up of the year. The kids get to hold it, they look through it and read it and get to see their work."

The students who make it through to the final round of judging will have their stories placed at the very beginning of the book. Cash prizes ranging between $20- $60 will also be awarded to the winners and their schools.