Twelve-year-old Fiona goes for gold with debut novel

Twelve-year-old schoolgirl Fiona Buckley will be hitting the books as usual next Friday — but on a grander scale. She’ll be reading from her newly-published novel as part of Listowel Writers’ Week.

The young author took on the project after a suggestion by her teacher and principal Cyril Lovett at Ballyvongane National School near Coachford, Co Cork, last summer, who had seen her growing talent for story-writing. Before mum Grett and dad Gerard even realised how seriously she had taken the task, she had 3,000 words of what has become Better than Gold were typed up on the computer at home.

Mr Lovett was so impressed when the school reopened that he approached the publishers, who have helped turn what started as a summer project into a book that is now available to buy online for reading devices or from bookshops.