I read this in the Independent newspaper and I felt inspired by it that I had to share it:

Writer who was rejected 100 times is finally rewarded

By Arifa Akbar, Deputy Literary Editor

A web designer and aspiring children's author, whose debut novel was turned down by 100 literary agents and publishers prior to being picked up by Andersen Press, was yesterday rewarded for his persistence when he was named winner of the Costa Children's Book Award.

Jason Wallace, 41, from London, beat the best-selling writer Jonathan Stroud to the prize for Out of Shadows, an inventive tale about Robert Mugabe's newly independent Zimbabwe in the 1980s. The power struggle between white and black Zimbabweans of that era is shown through the eyes of a schoolboy.

"I think I may have had a few low points when trying to get the book noticed, but in truth I don't think I would ever have given in," he told The Independent yesterday. He was born in Cheltenham but found himself in Africa at the age of 12 after his mother remarried and emigrated to Zimbabwe. The writer said his experience of growing up in the aftermath of the war of independence formed the foundation of his book.

He said: "This idea came that would allow me to write about something that means so much to me - from the sadness at seeing what Mugabe was doing to a country I loved, to simply reliving my teenage years as I wrote."