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Catching them young

The Classmate Young Author Contest hones the writing skills of students

Two Chennai girls, C. Priya studying in standard XI in Chinmaya Vidyalaya and Shreya Devnath from Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan are among the 29 children short-listed from across the country for the prestigious Classmate Young Author award.

Priya and Shreya qualified for the national contest after winning the Chennai city finals of the "Classmate Young Author Contest - 2005 (CYAC).

The national jury panel for CYAC-2005 was chaired by writer Ruskin Bond and included Nandita Puri, Neeru Nanda, Alpana Chaudhary and Bakthiar Dadbhoy. The jury selected 15 students for the national finals to be held today in Mumbai.

In addition to the CYAC Award, the winner will be entitled to a seven-day literary tour to London covering places such as Oxford, Cambridge and Stratford upon Avon. All the 15 finalist will win exciting prizes such as Home PCs, Camcorders and digi cams. Their stories will be published by Rupa & Co.

More than 120,000 children from 4000 schools from 15 cities participated in CYAC - 2005, the only nationwide talent search for young authors. It has become an important event in the academic calendar of schools. The contest encourages the writing and expression skills of young writers in the genres of science fiction, thriller and fantasy. Rupa & Co has published the best of young Indian writing from CYAC 2003 and CYAC 2004 in two books — "Someone, Somewhere at 23:13" and "Post Box No 99".

The contest is conducted by ITC's Classmate brand of notebooks, under the umbrella brand of Expressions. The Classmate range is the country's first eco-friendly stationery product and is prices between Rs. 10 and Rs. 40.

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