Writers Skylar Wang ‘22, Eva Berezovsky ‘19, and Yeukai Zimbwa ‘20 each received gold keys, the highest award possible, at the state level in the 2019 Scholastic Writing competition. Wang entered her poetry piece entitled, A Dinner with my Grandfather; it focused on her experience visiting China, and meeting her relatives for the first time. Berezovsky was awarded her gold key for her critical essay, Fathoming the Unfathomable: Beloved. Berezovsky wrote the aforementioned essay for her one of her English’s classes. Since the eighth grade, she has been submitting her class essays in the Scholastic competition; now that she is a senior and has reached her final year of eligibility, she says “I’m glad I could close with a solid turnout.”

At the national level, writers continue on to receive an honorable mention, bronze, silver, or gold key. Following her state award, Berezovsky’s piece was awarded a silver key. She plans on attending a Scholastics ceremony in both Minnesota and New York. Zimbwa submitted a poem, which she describes, “[the poem is] formatted like prose with the characteristics of poetry: imagery over narrative, poetic devices, etc.” The poem is titled, Growing Pains, a piece drawing upon Zimbwa’s experiences as an adolescent. In addition to a gold key at a state level, Zimbwa’s success continued, and her poem was given a gold key at the national level. She was also nominated for and subsequently received an American Voices medal, the highest regional honor for Growing Pains.

Congratulations to Skylar Wang, Eva Berezovsky, and Yeukai Zimbwa for their literary success, despite the unease that may come with expressing themselves. As Zimbwa put it, “I think a lot of young writers and artists in general, including myself, kind of crave validation for their work…It was scary to put my work out there, but in the end, I’m glad that I did.”