From Reader to Author: The Story of Akshaya Keerthi

There is a moment every teacher hopes to witness, the moment a child stops reading to complete an assignment and starts reading because they simply cannot stop.

For Akshaya Keerthi, a Grade 9 student at Keystone International School, that moment didn't just change how she reads. It changed what she creates.

Today, Akshaya is a published author, with four books to her name.

A Writer Who Builds Her Own Worlds

Ask Akshaya how she comes up with ideas and she will tell you she hunts for writing prompts, on Pinterest, across the internet, in the corners of her imagination.

"Sometimes I merge two prompts and write," she explains. "So it is like my imagination plus something that I read before."

She doesn't just read stories. She studies them, noticing how sentences are built, how characters reveal themselves, and which words make a reader pause. That habit, developed over years of reading and reflection, shows up clearly in everything she writes.

At 14, most students are still finding their voice. Akshaya is already using hers to build worlds.

The Books

The Final Letter

Akshaya's first notable work began with a quiet premise: a girl arrives in a new small town and visits a local bookstore. Every book she picks up holds a letter inside. As the letters accumulate, a mystery unfolds, one that connects her to the bookstore owner in ways she never expected.

The story is emotionally layered and deliberately paced. Her classmates said it read like something

"young adults would like." Akshaya describes it differently: "I am writing my emotions into the book."

She improved her vocabulary significantly while writing it, deliberately searching for words that would keep readers curious.

"I try to search for new words so that the readers get interested, curious on what to know, to know what the word means."

The Final Letter was selected for the jury choice round at BriBooks Young Authorship' Fair 2024 and ranked second in the state of Telangana, a remarkable achievement for a first major work.

Rise of the Sky Ball Champion

Her second notable book went somewhere entirely different.

Rise of the Sky Ball Champion is set in a futuristic city floating in the sky. Sky Ball, a sport Akshaya invented herself, blends basketball, acrobatics, and jet packs. Players compete in mid-air.

"Sky ball is a sport I made up on my own," she says. "I am a basketball player, so I tried to do something related to sports."

At the centre of the story is a girl living in the shadow of her famous brother. One match will determine her future. One match will prove she is more than someone else's reflection.

Some readers were genuinely confused, was sky ball a real sport? Akshaya takes that as a compliment.

"It also tells the readers that you can go as wild as you want," she says, "and most of the time, people will accept it."

The message beneath the imagination is clear: believe in yourself, no matter the field. No matter whose shadow you stand in.

The Moon Bound Oath and Hiking Disaster

Beyond her two notable works, Akshaya has also written The Moon Bound Oath and Hiking Disaster, a testament to the fact that her writing is not a one-time effort but a consistent, evolving practice.

Four books before Grade 10. That is not a hobby. That is a body of work.

How Bibliothon Built the Foundation

None of this happened overnight.

Behind Akshaya's confidence as a writer is something quieter, years of reading with intention, reflecting with honesty, and learning to sit with a story long enough to truly understand it.

That is what Keystone's Bibliothon reading programme does.

Bibliothon is not about finishing books quickly. It is about reading, pausing, and asking: What happened here? What did I feel? What words did I learn? Students write reflections from memory, describing characters, tracing plot structure, and identifying the moments that stayed with them.

Over time, that practice builds something powerful. Vocabulary grows. Sentence structures become familiar. The mechanics of storytelling, how a scene is set, how tension builds, how a character reveals themselves, become second nature.

Akshaya's writing shows every one of those instincts at work. 

What Keystone Made Possible

Keystone gave Akshaya more than a reading programme. It gave her an environment where creativity is taken seriously, where a student's imagination is treated as something worth developing, not just managing.

The school's approach connects reading to writing, writing to confidence, and confidence to the ability to step into the world and say something worth hearing.

Akshaya's four books are proof that this works.

One story earned a state-level award. Another invented a sport that doesn't exist and made readers wish it did. Two more mark a young writer who keeps showing up, keeps writing, and keeps growing.

All of it came from the same place: a student who learned to love reading, found her voice through reflection, and was trusted enough to follow her imagination wherever it went.

To get a deeper look at Akshaya’s journey and what motivates her as a young author, be sure to check out the inspiring reel featured on the Keystone School Instagram page.

In the reel, Akshaya shares what inspired her to write, her process of creating stories, and the importance of reading in shaping her work.

You can watch the full reel here: Keystone International School Instagram Reel 

Keystone International School's Bibliothon reading programme runs from Grade 1 onwards, building lifelong readers through structured reading, reflection, and a genuine love of books.

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