By OnLion Staff
At the 21st Annual Short Shory Story Contest awards assembly, five students read their stories. Thirty-three students submitted stories of no more than 500 words. After each winner their story, the Ellington Jazz Ensemble played a song. Based on the topics of the stories, contest organizer Mr. Newman titled the program “Longing.”
Reporters sat down with the three winners and the two runners-up to get the scoop on the stories behind their stories.
First Place – Nicholas Holland – “Race”
(Interviewed by Beza Kifle)
During the assembly for the 21st Short-Short Story contest, sophomore Nicholas Holland stepped away from his trumpet to read his 1st-place-winning story “Race.”
Nicholas wrote “Race” the day he came home from a track meet, after reading Mr. Newman’s reminder email that the stories were due soon. “I was like, what’s something I can write about? So I was like, race, that’s a double entendre. I just found a way to connect it,” he told me.
He wrote the story throughout the afternoon. “30 minutes here and there, but maybe 2 and half hours in total,” he explained. Afterward, he got some feedback from his friends because he had to cut down the story from 700 to 500 words. “I was just going around asking ‘what do you think about this?’ or ‘Is this better?’” he said.
“Race” is about a kid named Elijah and his best friend Noah at a track meet. Before the race, Elijah tells Noah that he’s going to ask a girl named Lindsay out after the race, but Noah is skeptical. While they are checking in before their race, Lindsay walks up to Elijah and asks if she can touch his hair. After winning the race, Elijah goes up to Lindsay and asks her out, but she says no because her parents are strict on who she dates.
The concept of the story has been something that Nicholas has been thinking about since last summer when he experienced a similar situation. “I thought about how different people may view race and how different parties are affected by that viewing,” Nicholas explained, “and especially in an environment like Lovett, I find it important to express stories like these because they shed a light on things people don’t necessarily think about.”
Through his story, Nicholas wanted to incite a moment of self-reflection. “What people in our community fail to realize is what to do in this situation, and how their decision can affect others. People in our community need to find out for themselves who is the antagonist,” he explained.
When I talked to Nicholas about his story, he told me that he was kind of surprised that “Race” won, since he thought that the second story that he submitted was better. That story was about an old man named Lucas who has a spot where he looks at the stars and one day he meets someone at his usual spot, and they watch the stars together.
As the first-place winner, Nicholas received a $100 cash prize, so I was curious to see what he would do with the money. “Probably something abstract,” he said, “ I feel like I got to get something to memorize this by, to remember this.”
Second Place – Hollis Mefford – “Bell”
Sophomore Hollis Mefford nabbed 2nd place for her story about a deaf girl named Bell getting hearing aids for the first time. Bell realizes that even though her world has completely changed through her newly developed sound senses, some things never change.
Hollis was having some writer’s block and could not think of anything to write for this short story. However, that changed when she got inspired by this random girl with a hearing aid buying groceries in line before her.
“I saw her and just couldn’t stop thinking about what life would be like with hearing aids, and what it would be like for her to go from silence to all the noise we live in today,” Hollis said.
As her twin, I couldn’t help but notice that Bell seemed to be a direct reflection of Hollis. Hollis described Bell as wearing Uggs, an Aritzia sweatshirt, and Dior lip oil, all of which are essential to Hollis’s stable outfit.
Ironically, Hollis too has hearing issues, however she would never admit that or try and get hearing aids.
This story took Hollis four days to write, and she really enjoyed writing it. “I learned a lot about myself and what writing process works best for me. I really developed my writing skills and enhanced my sentences by learning all the different grammatical structures we learned in class,” she said.
Throughout her writing process she explained that the first draft of the story had a similar story plot line to the last, “but I just had to fix a couple of grammatical and stylistic errors,” she stated.
Hollis said that she was most proud of her in-depth description of Bell and her word choice that enhanced the story and created a nice flow.
She added that she was very surprised that she even placed in the competition. “I mean I thought the story was good but not that good,” she said. “I was very pleasantly surprised when I got 2nd place!”
The day of her receiving the award she was very nervous and practiced reading her story to me for about an hour.
“When I went on the stage to read, I remembered to keep my head down, make sure to read the story slowly, then leave, and just pray I didn’t fall or stutter,” she stated.
However, after she was done reading she received many compliments and was extremely proud of herself and all that she just accomplished.
Congratulations to Hollis for her great story and well-deserved 2nd place spot in the short story contest. In the next NUD, look out to see if Hollis is wearing her Aritzia jacket, uggs, and Dior lip oil. Chances are she will be.
Third Place – Ali Wainwright – “The Library of Lost Souls”
(Interviewed by Parvi Anand)
In the 21st Annual Short Story Awards, sophomore Ali Wainwright took third place impressing the judges with her piece titled “The Library of Lost Souls.” Despite her initial hesitations to submit, Ali’s story captivated not only the judges, but everyone with her brilliant imagination.
Ali told me that her decision to enter the competition was not immediate. “I actually didn’t submit my story until after the deadline because Mr. Newman encouraged me to submit,” she confessed. “I have a fear of speaking in front of people, so it was hard.”
“The Library of Lost Souls” tells the story of a girl who stumbles upon a mysterious library in a dark alley. As she delves into the magical books within, she becomes addicted to the stories, finding meaning, purpose, and comfort in them. However, as time passes, she loses track of time and eventually meets her death within the library’s walls, only to hear the arrival of the next visitor or “victim” as she passes away.
Discussing the inspiration behind her story, Ali said, “I started off wanting it to be a really cool ethereal place. But I also wanted it to be personal, so I wrote about my fear of addiction as it runs into my family.” She added how her ending was intentional with another person wandering in, representing “the cycle of addiction repeating itself.”
The writing process was not an easy one for Ali. “It actually took me a really long time,” she shared. “I was really into it, so I would randomly be writing it. The actual draft took me a long time to write, but then I kept on rewriting and reading it. The harder part was coming up with the idea. Once I had a general idea, I went from there. Also, since I was revising it so much, I started overthinking it so much.”
Despite her doubts, her efforts paid off, and she was awarded third place in the contest. “I was surprised because I was trying to gaslight myself into thinking I wasn’t gonna win because of my fear of speaking in front of an audience,” she said. “But actually doing this helped me get over that fear. When I was up there, everything faded away, and I was zoned in.”
Throughout the writing process, Ali received valuable feedback from her father, Mr. Newman, and some of her friends. However, “it was hard for me to share it with people because it was so personal,” she admitted.
Interestingly Ali’s story was initially written as part of a class assignment and project. “We had to do it actually as an assignment / project, and then I ended up submitting it,” she explained. “There was big encouragement from Mr. Newman, and I don’t think I would’ve written one if it wasn’t for this class.”
It is safe to say that Ali was beyond deserving of this award. This achievement not only highlights her writing skills but creativity. Congratulations Ali!
Honorable Mention – Julia Threlkeld – “The Rat”
(interviewed by Eliza Pieschel)
Freshman Julia Threlkeld’s story, The Rat, landed honorable mention. She told me she never planned to submit to the contest until the last minute. “I submitted it as a joke at first, just for fun,” she said. “It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.”
Julia’s story was about a family in New York that lived with an unwelcome rat. Her inspiration came from her family. Her 27-year-old sister lives in New York and is accustomed to the rat issues.
She asked her parents what she should write about and as a joke her dad said she should write about fat rats, “The first thing that comes to mind with rats is cheaters because I hate rats and I hate cheaters so that is kind of where the plot came from,” Julia expanded.
Julia told me that the brainstorming took much longer than the time to write the story. “Brainstorming took a few days, but I wrote the rest in about thirty minutes just a few days before the deadline,” she told me.
Originally, the 500-word limitation was intimidating. To tackle the challenge she wrote a longer story, around 800 words, and cut it down from there. “I was afraid it wasn’t descriptive enough at first, but given that it is shorter than an English essay I am proud of it,” Julia said.
Throughout the story writing and brainstorming process, she made a few edits but nothing major. Just little tweaks here and there. “Originally he wasn’t going to eat the rat, but I changed that and just a few words throughout,” she said. The biggest challenge for Julia was writing the ending. She wanted a good, creative way to conclude the story and make it all come together.
While contest organizer Mr. Newman told me the word limit is partially intended to reward creativity within constraints, I wondered what Julia would have done differently if she had more time or more words allowed. “I think I would add more detail about who the two characters were and why their relationship was falling apart,” she said.
When submitting to the contest, Julia was unaware she would have to read her short story in front of the upper school during community time. “I was so so so nervous,” she said. However, after some convincing from Mr. Newman, she agreed to go up.. “During it, I forgot I was nervous and was so happy I did it,” she said.
Honorable Mention – Maya Hawkins- “The Visit”
(interviewed by Tanisha Naik)
Maya Hawkins’s story, The Visit, is about a girl who was visiting her best friend’s gravestone. “I came up with it when I was in the creative writing class,”, she told me. Even though she didn’t have any personal inspiration for her story, she wanted to “have more emphasis on the environment and that’s what I was able to do with it,” she said.
She also focused on language. “I don’t like using generic words, so thinking of a better word that fits the ambiance of the story, took me a while,” she said.
Although Maya didn’t receive any advice from her teachers, she got feedback from her friend, who suggested she “add a little bit more to it so it had more substance.”
Prior to receiving feedback, she spent about an hour drafting it. She then spent two hours revising and editing to make her story perfect before submitting it.
And all this hard work paid off, as Maya received honorable mention, which definitely amazed her. “Yeah, I was very surprised,” she, said.
Maya actually submitted two stories; the other one, “Luck.” imagined a world where “luck was a currency,” she said. She actually liked that story a little better, but “ I just sat down, knocked it out in another hour so that one probably wasn’t as well written as I could have made it,”, she said.
She plans to enter the contest next year, and hopefully “make it to the top 3,” she said.
I wondered if she had any last thoughts about this year’s story. “I guess I’m really proud of it,” she said. “ And I hope to continue writing.”
