Congratulations to Rowena for winning a place in War Girls!

This week, we're thrilled to raise our glasses to our Words & Pictures interviewer extraordinaire Rowena House, whose short story The Marshalling of Angelique's Geese won a competition run by Andersen Press at Bath Spa University. To her delight - and ours! - Rowena's story has been included in the anthology War Girls, where she rubs shoulders with some very well known YA authors.

Rowena tells us: "It’s hard to believe that I’m celebrating actual words in print. It’s just a short story, I know, and a published novel is still a long way off, but being involved in War Girls is fantastic, brilliant, extraordinary. Pick a superlative and throw it in the air with Captain Jack’s hat on!

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The multi-talented Vivienne DaCosta invited me to guest blog on Serendipity Reviews about researching my story, The Marshalling of Angelique’s Geese, which is set in France in 1916, and how it won the Andersen Press-Bath Spa MA writing competition, which led to the magical moment of publication. So please pop over there and take a peek if you’re interested. But I would like to mention the other War Girls authors, who each chose a fascinating, little known aspect of World War One to explore how that appalling conflict impacted on young women and girls. Thanks, too, to Andersen Press for having the original idea for this moving collection of stories. So here’s to Anne Fine, Melvin Burgess, Sally Nicholls, Berlie Doherty, Matt Whyman, Theresa Breslin, Adele Geras and Mary Hooper - and everyone at Andersen Press. You’re helping keep history alive."

War Girls, a collection of nine short stories about women and girls during World War One, was published on June 5th by Andersen Press. Do take a look at Rowena's blog post - it's a fascinating read and join me with a huge Hurrah! for Rowena!

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Tania Tay is an ex-advertising copywriter and has been published in Sable LitMag. She is currently writing a YA novel and is a member of The Golden Egg Academy.