Every year students are recognized for their work in both the arts and in writing through Scholastic. This year junior Jenna Bao, was recognized for multiple writing pieces.
Bao received a gold and silver key for short stories, and three honorable mentions for science fiction/fantasy and flash fiction. Gold keys are awarded to the top five to seven percent and are then considered at a national level.
“This is my second year applying for Scholastics. I definitely performed better than last year, when I received a silver and a few honorable mentions. Progress!” Bao said.
The requirements to submit work to any Scholastic competition is enrollment in any form of school in the US or Canada from grades 7-12. Each student has to create an account and upload their work.
The judges look for things such as originality, technical skill, and emergence of a personal vision or voice. There is no strict guidelines on the content submitted as there are no specific prompts, giving students room to express themselves.
Bao has also recently been published in the February issue of Flash Frontier’s online magazine, and her work can be viewed here.
“I was really excited about this primarily because it’s my first time getting picked for an ‘adult’ magazine, and not one that was specifically for students/teens. It’s a super short piece and not really what I usually do, but it’s fun to experiment with all sorts of short fiction,” Bao said.
Flash Frontier is a literary magazine in New Zealand that publishes stories relating to different themes each month. For their Feb issue the theme was remnants, and Bao’s story is about the remnants left behind after losing a loved one.
Bao is currently a first reader for the literary magazine for high schoolers, Polyphony H.S. Being a first reader, she reviews the magazines submissions and write comments to the authors.
“It’s still a pretty recent development, but I actually really love it. It makes me think more about the craft in general, and therefore my own stuff,” Bao said.
She continues to write and submit her work to different competitions, taking inspiration from other artistic works. While she is not necessarily looking into a career in writing, Bao hopes to continue writing throughout her life.