Young country singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has already reached a phenomenal peak of success, and all before she had even left her teen years behind. Encouraged by her grandmother, an opera singer, the Pennsylvanian local began performing at the tender age of 10. Swift, having already won a national poetry award in grade four, was launching into what would turn out to become a successful international music career. By age 12 she had attained her first guitar - and first bloodied fingers due to an over-zealous practice regime - and had started writing original material. By age 14 her family had moved to Nashville, Tennesee, where she became the youngest staff songwriter ever to be hired by Sony Tree publishing house. By age 16 Swift was signed to music industry veteran Scott Borchetta's new label Big Machine Records, and she became the first female solo country artist ever to have written or co-written all the songs on her debut album, titled Taylor Swift. The album spawned five consecutive top 10 singles as well as a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist (which she lost to Amy Winehouse) and went multi-platinum. 2008 saw Taylor Swift release her second full-length album, Fearless.