St Andrews Writing Competition in March & April
This year St Andrews began a writing competition to allow students an opportunity to demonstrate their imaginative creativity. The goal of the competition is to develop the written skills of students and to celebrate those in the College who are talented writers.
In March the topic was open to anyone, writing anything. This was a way to generate interest among the student body. In April the topic was non-fictional, “What Matters to You”, as a tribute to an external competition that runs each year on the same topic. Clearly events outside of the College dominated thoughts in April and students rightly focused on adapting to the new world and ways of doing things, yet still we received entries for the competition. Results have been withheld until this week in the hope that assemblies would be in person and the students recognised in person, but as this will not happen in the near future, winners were announced in assembly this week.
The winners of the competition are awarded $30 Teens gift vouchers and the runners-up are awarded certificates. The winners and runners up for the March and April St Andrews Writing Competition are below.
MARCH WINNERS:
YEAR 7: Elyscia Barrett. “The Nameless Island”.
YEAR 8: Emma Croser. “The Unexpected Sentiment”.
YEAR 9: Ava Alley. Untitled.
MARCH RUNNERS-UP:
YEAR 7: Aryan Prasad. “America’s Icebox”.
YEAR 8: Frienczel Espino. “Anything is Possible”.
YEAR 9: Ayush Goyal. Untitled Poem.
APRIL WINNERS:
YEAR 7: Ada Ding. Untitled.
YEAR 8: Chloe Garcia. “Vengeance”.
YEAR 9: Niamh Healy. “Media Influences”.
APRIL RUNNERS-UP:
YEAR 7: McKenzie Jones. “The Music Academy”.
YEAR 8: Euleila Barrett. Untitled.
Congratulations to all of those students who entered and to those who won awards. The level of writing was superb and I encourage as many students to enter as possible.
Some of the students were kind enough to give permission for their writing to be published, please enjoy these samples of their work.
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Extract from “America’s Icebox” by Aryan Prasad.
The promenade in Homer is also called "The Spit." It's a long island sticking out into the delightful blue Kachemak Bay. The mist-filled narrows appeared to envelop the isle as individuals shopped and feasted at the patio bistros. people walked around the path and searched for the correct store that lured me to come in. The sun was sufficiently warm that the warmth embraced me like a blanket, yet the breeze blew ruthlessly through the cove. It made the citizen’s nose and cheeks a cherry red shading as they folded their hood over their face to keep out the virus. It blew so hard a for a few days that the waves on the seashore would woosh around and sprinkle onto the shore. The waves caused jellyfish to wash onto the sandy banks.
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Extract from “Media Influences” by Niamh Healy.
You get another friend
A 2D one you start to extend
Another and another are added to the list
Up to 100 have to coexist
Your eyes strain
It happened again
Another notification what’s it now
Another person you allow
To come into your life just like that
Letting them walk on you like a mat
You look at it now it shining so bright
It's just like a headlight
It’s your social media in the darkness of the street
The gleaming light that's so bittersweet
Instagrams up as you scroll through
The light getting closer as it grew
Then bang
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Extract from “The Nameless Island” by Elyscia Barrett.
Chapter Two
The ocean. Calm and gentle. Sweet and subtle. Should I revere it or fear it? I examined the ocean carefully, the ocean breathed, the surface rising and falling with rhythmic ease. The waves became the ocean’s pulse, beating fast. With every wave, the beating accelerated. The thought of never returning to a normal life sent tears streaming down my face, I couldn’t do anything further but to sit cross-legged upon the sandy shore and gaze at the horizon in front of me. Waves of deep royal blue crept towards me before running away, only to repeat the process in a cycle. Droplets of salty water spray across the diverse seashells situated on shore. But beyond those magical waves was something even more amazing and breathtaking.
Chapter Three
The sunset. Beautiful smudges of coral, lavender, turquoise and a fiery orange blended together to create a sight so astounding it swept me away from all my worries, just like the waves creeping over the seashells and stealing them in a matter of seconds. My last teardrop fell and hit the soft yellow sand below and a warm feeling of safety and security overwhelmed me, as the sun dipped below the horizon. The vast ocean within my grasp, was my home, where I belonged, a place to escape away from reality, from all my worries. Nothing could take away this feeling, or so I thought.
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Extract from “The Unexpected Sentiment” by Emma Crosser.
Her delicate, resplendent face continued to stare at me with that same smile. The same portrait positioned in the same place within the sombre shelf; reminding us of how melancholy and bittersweet her passing was. That same face had prolonged to look at me for the past three years. I gazed in her beloved eyes, and fell under her spell. I wish I inexorably didn’t have to say my eventual farewells. Why did she have to go, oh so soon? Without your smile to light up the room, it’s as empty as a void of space, absent of all particles. That emptiness travels everywhere you perceive. Till even the sun sheds a tear.
Out of all emotions that ever existed, there is one that is always unexpected. Grief. When we love someone, we trust them in every single way possible and earn their reciprocal trust within each other. Loving someone means letting yourself go, it means giving in and taking chances. If we deeply feel this emotion for an individual/s; it makes it arduous to let them go. There are no words for how vanquished that makes a person. It’s like arising up from a bad dream, only to discover that it is reality. It is like observing sunlight fade from the sky. The only aspect we have an appraisal in, is how we handle it. That is what we address as grief.
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Extract from an unititled poem by Ayush Goyal.
Our ears have been attuned
To the silence of a deafening roar
To the roar in retrospect which now defines the world
It covers as a landscape forming a plasticine theatre
Which all resembles a sense of deathlessness
It’s a plastic theatre
Our ears have been attuned
To the silence of deafening soulful cries
For she has cried to many times
And we have just wiped the tears away
Only to create some more
Only to add to the theatre
But why do we not ask ourselves
How many more times will we make her cry
Until she goes silent
forever
And so do we
And so does the theatre
Our lungs have been attuned
To the sound of air
As it mourns for justice
Because we have intoxicated it
We have made it something we chose to ignore
Yet love in the plastic theatre
Our ears have been attuned
To the deathly silence of our eyes
As the full retrospect of humans
Has destroyed the creator of life
Leaving all we have scarce
Yet an abundance, of other things in the theatre
But why do we ever bother
To water the petals of a flower
When really,
There are no petals left
To water
Not even in the plastic theatre
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Extract from an untitled story by Ava Alley.
I could still remember the day those two army officers arrived at my house to tell me my brother was dead. Their cold hard faces gave little away when I asked how he died. “Killed in the course of duty” was all they would say. Everything else was “classified”. They handed me a letter from my brother, saluted, then turned and left, the click-clack of their shoes on the pavement slowly dying away. I stood frozen to the spot, dazed, confused and devastated. I finally opened the letter with trembling fingers but only one line stared back at me. “I’ll always be with you brother. Karl”. What did he mean? How could he be with me ever again? He was dead.
Now I leaned heavily on the rusty shovel in my hands and started to dig, determined to uncover the truth. The scar-faced man beside me began to dig at the other end and soon my brother’s coffin began to emerge from beneath the layers of sodden earth. Faced with this moment of truth, I began to panic. What if I was wrong? I knew Karl hated the army, I knew he wanted out. His girlfriend Sarah hadn’t turned up at the funeral, hadn’t contacted her family in the two months since his death. But maybe she just needed some space?
I looked down at the coffin as my hired helper tugged at the lid with a crowbar. With a loud snap the lid flew back revealing the frozen corpse inside. My whole body filled with relief - there was a dead man in the coffin. But it wasn’t my brother.