A PORTLAND teenager has published her first book.

IPACA student Katie Ingram King, 13, wrote her novel ‘Created’ after her English teacher Rachel Stempien challenged her to take part in National Novel Writing Month.

The idea was that students wrote every day of the month. Katie really took to the challenge and wrote an average of 1,337 words per day, totalling more than 40,000 words by the end of the month.

Katie decided that she did not want to leave it there and having carefully redrafted and edited her work, took advantage of Amazon’s direct publishing program to share her work with a wider audience.

The novel became available worldwide earlier this month and is available to download now for Kindle devices.

Katie said: “It was a fantastic experience and something I thought I’d never be able to do. It just proves that there’s a novel in everyone.”

Miss Stempien praised Katie’s hard work and dedication.

She said: “If anyone was going to do it, it would have been Katie.

“She’s been an excellent writer from the moment she came to us, and her effort and dedication since have led to this great piece.”