![]() ![]() The premise sounds hard won: Tim Te Maro and Elliott Parker, two students in their final year at Fox Glacier High School for the Magically Adept (think Hogwarts, but closer to Westport), have never gotten along. Valley doesn’t write at a desk – she has a blue velvet couch and bajillions of plants (Photo: Supplied) ![]() When I spoke to her over Zoom, Valley was a matter-of-fact, casual presence, but one who seemed quietly, confidently delighted in the world she’d created, even as her dog created pure chaos around her. Valley, who is a high school teacher and has a bachelor’s degree in design – her website states she is using both to teach teenagers how to have good taste – comes from Tāmaki Makaurau and now lives in the Waitākere Ranges. ![]() The judges called her book “charming and hilarious … selected from a record number of submissions, and was instantly beloved by the team”. It is also an opening that is reflective of its author, HS Valley (a pseudonym, but the H is real), who walked away with the 2020 Ampersand Prize, Australia and New Zealand’s premiere award for unpublished writers of middle-grade and young adult fiction. ![]()
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