The St Peter's College pupil has won the 2018 Otago Daily Times Secondary Scene Award for Excellence in Writing, for a piece she wrote after her brother had been in a serious car accident.
The 16-year-old said her brother was all right, but he was devastated when the driver of the car died.
The driver was one of her brother's best friends.
The accident also had a major effect on Ella's immediate family, and she found writing the piece was a good way to deal with it.
''I wrote the story sometime after the accident happened, so when I was writing it, it kind of brought back some of the memories of him [the driver] and I guess it kind of did help in some way and kind of provided some closure to what had happened.
''In a way, it's like a tribute to him.''
Although the story was inspired by the accident, Ella said the people and the events in the article were fictional.
It describes the thoughts running through the mind of a teenage girl who is lying in a hospital bed, dying following a serious car accident.
''I tried to write the story from the driver's perspective.
''The message of the story is the danger of cars and how car accidents not only affect the people in the car, but the families and the whole community as well.''
Ella has just finished year 12 and will return to school for her final year next year.
As well as writing, she loves science and ultimately plans to study nursing.
