When Joan Denahy first became involved with Write a Book in a Day, it was little more than an intriguing idea tucked away at the bottom of a library journal.
At the time, the competition was run by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre and Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth in Western Australia. There was just one participating group – Joan’s – and a handful of teams willing to take on the challenge of writing an entire book in a single day.
Twenty-one years later and Write a Book in a Day has grown into one of Australia’s most inspiring literacy and fundraising initiatives – engaging tens of thousands of students from hundreds of schools while raising millions of dollars for childhood cancer research.
And Joan has been there every step of the way, reading countless stories.
"In 2005, there was one school in NSW, and that was mine, with 6 teams," Joan recalls.
“The only reason I found out about it was because it was in a library journal. It was right down the bottom of a list of things you could do for Book Week. I’d tried everything else over the years, so I thought, ‘Well, I’ll try that.'”
What started as a simple decision quickly became a lifelong commitment.
“Reading the books has always been a passion of mine, from day one it’s never been a burden. It’s always been something I’ve just really loved mainly because the kids get so much out of it.” she says
As a teacher librarian and later a volunteer reader, Joan has witnessed the competition’s extraordinary evolution. What began as a small local event eventually expanded across Australia before finding a new home with The Kids’ Cancer Project, allowing it to grow into the national program it is today.
“The best thing that happened was having the involvement of the charity,” Joan says.
“It got too big for us. Otherwise, I don’t think it would have kept going the way it has.”
Today, thousands of students take part each year, forming teams to write, illustrate and edit an original story in just 12 hours. The challenge itself is deceptively difficult with teams given a set of parameters that must be included before spending the day writing and illustrating.
Along the way, they also help to raise vital funds to support research into childhood cancer.
For Joan, the competition succeeds because it achieves something rare – combining creativity, collaboration and purpose.
“I think it ticks so many boxes,” she says.
"Raising funds for kids' cancer is a really important thing. It gives kids an opportunity to work as a team and to be able to write. Often kids are good at sport, or music, or other things, but this writing thing is just something to behold when they do it."
“You try and write a book in a single day. I know I couldn’t.”
“The originality and the ideas they come up with is extraordinary,” she says.
“You take a ballerina and a petrol station and an artist and all these random things, and then they write 4,000 words, illustrate it and do it in a day.”
The impact on students is immediate.
“When I first started running it, the next day the kids would come and say, ‘Miss, can I please go in again next year?’” she recalls.
“I’d say, ‘That’s a year away.’ And they’d say, ‘That’s okay, just keep me in mind.'”
Over two decades, Joan has seen countless examples of how the competition brings together students from every corner of Australia.
“It’s not just the elite schools who do well,” she says.
“It’s everywhere.”
Volunteer awards ceremony in 2018 L-R: Judy Gillespie, Col Reynolds OAM, Joan Denahy and Jody McDonnell
Books from Christmas Island District High School and Gol Gol Public School