A young Mill Hill writer is celebrating the launch of her third novel today.

Andrea Michael, 24, of Hillside Road, will be the star of a reception held in her honour at the University of East Anglia’s London campus in Middlesex Street in central London.

She said: “I’m very excited about this launch; it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I finally fee I have the confidence to call myself a proper author.”

Her novel, Wine Dark, Sea Blue, charts the troubles of a North London girl trying to find herself and establish herself as an artist in the middle of the recession.

She said: “It’s very much inspired by growing up in Mill Hill, especially the feeling you have coming back to the comfort of the suburbs, with fields and trees, after the excitement and danger of central London.”

The book is dedicated to the memory of Dorothy Levy, a former headteacher of Fairway Primary School in The Fairway, who died of cancer in December 2005 and who inspired Miss Michael to become a novelist.

Miss Michael said: “Mrs Levy started teaching creative writing classes when I was ten. While other people said I would grow out of my ambition to be a writer and would go on to do something else, she always had faith.

"She said she would buy my first novel when it came out.”

Miss Michael studied undergraduate and Masters degrees in English Literature and Creative writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

She currently runs her own company, The DumbSaint Project, which holds creative writing workshops and holds a writers residency in East London.

During the launch, there will be a speech from UEA lecturer Professor Sarah Churchwell.

Miss Michael, who is currently working on her fourth book, was delighted the reception was being held in her honour. She said: “The novel was my dissertation for my Masters in creative writing and the university wanted to celebrate it.”