Write a Book in a Day

Write a Book in a Day 2025

For the third year in a row, we have been blown away by the enthusiasm, creativity, teamwork and skill demonstrated by our writers and illustrators in the annual ‘Write a Book in a Day’ competition.

This year a whopping 119 Huntingtower students formed 13 teams and took over the school for ‘WABIAD Day’ on Sunday 22 June. Starting at 8am, each team was given a unique set of parameters that they had to use as the basis of a story: involving characters from plumbers to superheroes to digeridoos and a queen, based in settings including cruise ships, secret gardens, rocket concerts and Kakadu National Park, and exploring issues like fashion crises, forgotten birthdays, discovering magical powers and learning to fly. 

Teams planned, wrote, drew and problem-solved throughout the day. Teams organised themselves, divided up roles, assembled and edited their stories, along with holding a few impromptu dance parties. In the end every team was able to create and fully illustrate their own 5,000 word long picture story books. Their stories were extremely creative, with many outstanding illustrations, and all of the teams succeeded in successfully completing their stories under the time pressures while taking full responsibility for their planning, writing and creation. 

It was great to see the enthusiasm, teamwork and creative spark from so many of our students, who despite a long term were full of energy on the day. You can find their creations on HT Connect.

‘Write a Book in a Day’, in addition to being a creative writing competition, is also a fundraiser for the Kids’ Cancer Project, who raise money for scientific research to develop better treatments for all children with cancer. If you would like to sponsor a team, their fundraising links can be found here:

Following the great success that we have seen in previous years, with numerous state winners and a national champion in 2024, we are very excited to see how our writers go in 2025, and look forward to the announcement of winning books in September. 

If you would like to see more of the process that the students go through, the Kids’ Cancer Project has featured out Huntingtower writers in a recent series in their newsletter following their recent successes. You can read all about them here:

Chasing consistent success this Write a Book in a Day: Preparation is key, or is it? | Write a Book In a Day

Chasing consistent success this Write a Book in a Day: The secret sauce | Write a Book In a Day

Chasing consistent success this Write a Book in a Day: Words to the wise | Write a Book In a Day

Mr Matthew McDonald

Director of Student Communication and Engagement