When, at the age of 9, Rutendo Shadaya decided to pen a novel as a gift for her best friend’s birthday, she threw herself into the intricate work of fantasy world-building. Drawing inspiration from her own friendships and culture as a Zimbabwean-New Zealander, she immersed herself in fantasy literature research and crafted the journey of her protagonist Rachel through a magical forest. But what began as a simple idea for a gift evolved into something much more.

Her parents, initially ambivalent about the project, quickly felt it ought to be shared with the world. In pursuit of a traditional publisher, they visited one an hour outside of town—only to be told that her manuscript wasn’t good enough. “I felt like that was a bit of a form of ageism, I guess?” Rutendo reflects. “But then, realistically, what publishing agency would publish a nine-year-old?”

So Shadaya’s family took the challenge head-on, choosing to self-publish and self-market her work. Now 17, she has self-published two fantasy books: Rachel and the Enchanted Forest (2020) and Rachel and the Chevene Pirates (2022). Shadaya hopes fellow teenagers will be able to see themselves in the characters and be inspired to face life’s challenges—and to pick up their pens. In the years since publishing her debut novel, Shadaya has spoken to youth communities at conferences and across interviews in New Zealand, encouraging young people, and young women in particular, to write.

“I want to inspire people who have similar backgrounds … because when I started writing, I didn’t have many resources, based in a small town.”

But for her, the desire for relatability runs deeper than just her characters’ storylines. She now hopes to draw on her Zimbabwean heritage in future writing to provide the representation she lacked in her own childhood reading.

“I didn’t have many books that I read that were, like, predominantly Black,” she reflects. “I mostly started reading those books when I started hitting my tween and teenage years. And I wish I had that as it could have helped me formulate my writing a bit more in my early stages.”