Students Win Writing Awards!
Congratulations to Olivia Yates, Ethan Christou and Keith Cooke for their recognition as recipients of the 2020 Maryland Scholastic Art & Writing Awards!
Olivia Yates is a nominee in the American Voices category and her writing “My Mountain” will be submitted along with the four other Maryland finalists to the national competition. Her piece was a personal memoir essay about the importance of accepting yourself and not being influenced by national marketing or other societal standards of beauty.
“So, when I cried because of horrible things that are being said in the media and negative messages I have been told, I’m crying for all people who have seen these posts or magazines and felt the same as me. As someone who has recognized a positive image of beauty and who has joined a movement that encourages people to feel confident within themselves, I know how important it is to feel comfortable in your own skin.” Excerpt from “My Mountain” by Olivia Yates
Ethan Christou won the Emerging Artists Inspire Scholarship for his work “The Senses Dividing.” This Silver Key award in the short story category was for a suspense-filled work about a not-so-ordinary day of fright bouncing back and forth between the real world and a dream state.
“I was running down a hallway. There was something behind me with no face. I kept running until I saw there was no end of the hallway. The faceless entity was still behind me, but another one was in front of me as well. A passage opened up beside me. I went inside and felt myself falling. It was peaceful. It was empty.” Excerpt from “The Senses Dividing” by Ethan Christou
Keith Cooke won an Honorable Mention in the Humor category for his work “Once upon a time,” a Halloween story of imaginations and fear run amuck.
“They wondered if she had figured out that the candy didn’t work and that she needed to figure out a different way to end them. Well that just made everything worse in their minds. Their brains were rumbling so quickly that they couldn’t even finish a sentence. From across the street they saw her looking out of her front window on the first floor. They could not see where she was looking or if she was looking at them.” Excerpt from “Once Upon a Time” by Keith Cooke.
All of these works were written and developed in the creative writing seminar taught by Don Riesett. Don teaches this two-hour seminar every Friday morning and follows it up on Wednesdays with one-on-one time with each student to go over their work. He encourages the students to think more deeply and creatively while developing their writing and communication skills. His success is measured by the students love of writing and of hearing each other’s work and can also be seen in the recognition that Olivia, Ethan and Keith have been given
Of the 13 special prize winners in writing from both public and private schools located in Baltimore City, students from The Community School won three of the awards. The awards are presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers whose mission is to identify students with exceptional artistic and literary talent and present their remarkable work to the world through the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. This year there were nearly 4,000 entries from Maryland and over 340,000 entries nationwide. There will be an award ceremony held at Baltimore Center Stage on Sunday, March 1st.
Our appreciation goes to Sarah Doccolo from the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts for encouraging our students to enter into this competition and for their kind support of our program.
We are proud of all of our students and send special congratulations to Olivia, Ethan and Keith with a special thanks to Mr. Don!