Lillian Wright Awards for Creative Writing

The Lillian Wright Awards for Creative Writing

The Lillian Wright Awards recognize literary achievement among young writers in the COMPAS Creative Classroom Program. Generously underwritten by the Lillian Wright and C. Emil Berglund Foundation, the award winners and their schools are celebrated at the publication event in November along with all the students within these pages. This year’s judge is the anthology’s editor Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre:

Coming from the world of poetry slams, I know first-hand how arbitrary awards and accolades can be, and what kind of chaos lives in the heads of judges. That is just to say: while the five young writers listed here each captured something powerful and vital in their writing, so did a whole lot of other young writers who aren’t listed here. If writers are astronomers, mapping the stars and unlocking the secrets of the cosmos, awards are shooting stars: always fun to see, but fleeting distractions from the larger work in front of us. Still, congratulations to these five writers for catching one anyway.

The winners are:

BEST WRITING, GRADES K-3: “The Dream of Peace,” by Benjamin Edward Kunkel, Grade 3 Meadowbrook Elementary, Golden Valley

BEST WRITING, GRADES 4-5: “Spirit,” by Olivia George, Grade 5 Saint Paul Academy – Lower School, Saint Paul

BEST WRITING, GRADES 6-7: “Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder,” by IzzyGail Jo Middlebrook, Grade 6 Saint Paul Academy – Upper School, Saint Paul