Monarch PK-8 seventh grader Leta DeGiorgi decided at the last minute to enter a writing contest she heard about at school, using the contest to turn a previously written paragraph into a story about a girl who goes on an epic quest of discovery.

As one of the contest winners, her short book, titled “Zenovia,” recently was professionally illustrated and published. She saw copies of her finished book for the first time during a recognition event Wednesday at the Louisville school.

“When I first learned I got chosen, it was so surreal,” she said. “I thought it was a prank. Seeing my book published, it feels so satisfying. I’m so excited. Hopefully I can continue the book with more quests.”

Altogether, 45 Monarch PK-8 students entered the national writing contest at the urging of motivational speaker Stan Tucker. Tucker, who was invited to speak to the students about a year ago by Monarch PK-8 librarian Kelsey Shearer, shared information about the contest that’s held through his nonprofit organization, “Leap for Literacy.”

Five Monarch students — including two who co-authored a book — were chosen to have their work illustrated and published. Wednesday, Tucker returned to Monarch to help unveil the published books.

“Publishing books opens a world for students,” Tucker said. “I’m trying to plant a seed of how important the written word is.”

The students signed and sold their books Wednesday during lunch. The books also will be available on Amazon, with the profits going to the student authors.

Contest winner and fourth grader Roku Maine wrote a picture book titled “Don’t Look at Me!” He previously was invited to go to Atlanta for a book unveiling and was honored again by the school Wednesday.

“It’s fun making up stories and using your imagination,” he said. “If I think about something I do all day or something I like, sometimes I get ideas from that.”

His book is about a shy monkey at a zoo who leaves with his best friend, a penguin, to go on an adventure. He discovers that he’s not bothered by people looking at him while he’s dancing, so he returns to the zoo.

“At the end, they realize it’s OK to be seen by people,” Roku said. “The other animals are happy.”Co-authors Keira Cockerham and Kara Stevenson, ninth graders at Monarch High, penned a science fiction story titled “Alien on Earth.” While writing together can be challenging, they said, it also made the process more fun.

“You can build off each other’s ideas,” Keira said, adding she wasn’t much of a writer before entering the contest. “This made me figure out I did really like writing. I’m working on a sequel.”

Kara said the most challenging part was figuring out how to make the plot flow well.

“We wrote half the book the night before it was due,” she said. “We kept changing the plot. Seeing our book, it’s pretty cool. I would like to write more in the future.”

Eighth grader Evie Leslie’s book, “Anomalies,” follows a girl whose mother is murdered by a serial killer. Afraid she will be the killer’s next victim, she works to solve the mystery of the killer’s identity.

Evie said she didn’t scare herself with the story, but was “scared I wouldn’t get it done in time.”

“This story existed in my head for awhile,” she said. “I was writing shorter stories before. This contest pushed me to write a longer one.”

Leta said she wrote her book without first plotting the story, but she doesn’t recommend that method. Instead, she said, she’s learned that starting with an outline makes the process less nerve-wracking.

“It definitely helps to plan it out, but I think it turned out pretty well,” she said.

Her advice to future student authors is to “go for it.”

“Share your story with the world,” she said.