Congratulations to all the participants in, and especially to the winners of, the first Tri-Valley Writers High School Writing Contest. Students in grades 9-11 from ten area high schools competed for prizes in fiction, essay, and poetry.
A celebration for the winners was held Saturday, June 30, at Towne Center Books, 555 Main Street, Pleasanton. Winning students received certificates and monetary awards and read their writings.
The winning writers are:
Poetry
First Place – Hans Lee, “Book’s Dream”
Second Place – Enikoe Bihari, “Oblivious”
Third Place – Enikoe Bihari, “Moonslaves”
Honorable Mention
Jazmin Almeida, “Hang Your Raincoat on the Moon”
Brenna Botzheim, “I Can See the Stars”
Jessica Wright, “Cries of a Sober Teenager”
Tiffany Zheng, “Like Fireflies”
Essay
First Place – Ke Zhao, “Glass Hearts”
Second Place – Katie Chan, “Mommy and Baba”
Third Place – Kristie Becker, “Broken Butterflies”
Honorable Mention
Tori Knuppe, “A Sculpted Child”
Maekhila Koppikar, “Shades of Gray”
Hayley Revells, “The Piano Keys”
Aryo Sorayya, “The Chains of Man”
Ke Zhao, “Kaleidoscope”
Fiction
First Place – Claire Zasso, “Crash”
Second Place – Angie Kang, “You Know”
Third Place – Nick Livson, “The First Storm”
Honorable Mention
Tiuli Kulshi, “Escape”
Tarun Reddy, “Across the World in a Second”
Sijing Xie, “Curious George”
Qianying Zhang, “Regaining Her Balance”
Tri-Valley Writer member Lynn Goodwin led a committee of judges that included Fred Norman and Marilyn Slade (poetry); Cindy Luck and Kathy Urban (essay); Juliana Kleist, Lani Longshore and Ed Miracle (fiction). In addition, Goodwin was also a judge in the essay category. The contest was organized by Paula Chinick, Vice President/Community Liaison.