Schools

Montclair Students Earn National Writing Awards

Middle school student awarded Gold Key for poetry while high school senior wins Silver Medal for novel.

Montclair High School students joined the ranks of writers Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote and Joyce Carol Oates in earning kudos in the 2012-2013 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Regional winners of the competition have been announced and those students who have earned a "Gold Key" for their work will see their work advance in the competition.

Deryn Mierlak, an eighth-grade student at the Mt. Hebron Middle School in Upper Montclair was awarded a Gold Key for poetry for her piece titled, “Native Land.”

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Helen Laser, a 12th-grade student at Montclair High School in Montclair was awarded a Silver Medal for her novel titled, “Red Things.”

Student submissions are judged by luminaries in the literary arts, some of whom are past award recipients. Notable past jurors include Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Judy Blume, Paula Poundstone, Lesley Stahl, Billy Collins and David Sedaris.

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Panelists look for works that best exemplify the Awards’ core values:  originality, technical skill, and the emergence of personal voice or vision. In the past five years, submissions have topped 700,000 works, and students have been eligible for over $25 million in awards and scholarships.

To see Mierlak's entry, click here.

To see an excerpt of Laser's entry, click here.


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