A YOUNG writer's thoughts about her home town of Bolton have won her a top award in a competition.

Emily Graham, aged 16, has won first place in The Portico Sadie Massey Award for Young Writers.

The competition is run by The Portico Library in Manchester City Centre annually for secondary school pupils.

And for 2017, pupils in Years Nine to 13 were asked to write an original narrative based on a person, place or event in the North of England in which the setting features strongly.

Emily's piece was simply titled Bolton.

The Bolton School pupil said: "We had to write something about the North West and I chose to write about my home town, everything it makes me feel and stories I’ve experienced.

"It talks about exciting things that have happened in my life and how that correlates to how I feel about the town."

She penned her thoughts on the town into just a page and a half to fit the word limit.

After finding out she won, Emily said: "I write a lot, so I get shortlisted a lot, but I didn’t think I’d win anything – but it’s a really nice feeling."

'Bolton’ will be published alongside other winning entries and stories by children’s authors in a book titled Time Travellers and the Crystal Dome.

Emily has also been invited to the award ceremony next month at The Portico Library in Manchester, where she will receive her prize – a certificate, book tokens and a copy of the published book.

She will also have the opportunity to meet the judges, Melvin Burgess and Martin Griffin — who also writes as Fletcher Moss, and during the evening will enjoy a performance from Manchester poet Tony Walsh.

The school will receive an author’s visit and a copy of Time Travellers and the Crystal Dome for the school library.