A YOUNG writer from Burnham has been honoured at the Young Muslim Writers Awards 2016 for his short story.

Seven-year-old Rayan Rasool came out top in the Key Stage 1 Short Story competition for his story ‘The Circus and the Robbery’.

The awards, held in London on December 3, were set up as a standalone competition for five to 16-year-olds in 2010, following its success as part of Muslim Hands’ Muslim Writers Awards.

Since then, it has encouraged and nurtured the writing talents of thousands of children through creative writing workshops and the annual competition.

The event was hosted by award-winning television and BBC radio presenter Nadia Ali and awards were presented by multi-award winning author SF Said who is best-known for his book Varjak Paw, children’s author and screenwriter David Solomons and Tim Robertson.

Asmaa Islam Georgiou, CEO at the Yusuf Islam Foundation who run the awards, said: “Well done to all the young writers themselves for putting pen to paper and fingertips to keypad, and to their parents for supporting them.”