Award Winners
Young Writers Awards Winners
For 10 years, the Young Writers Awards has awarded cash and scholarships to the most promising high school writers worldwide. Submissions of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have grown to nearly 7,000 per year. We congratulate all entrants on their extraordinary submissions and are pleased to share past winning entries below.
Recent Winners
In 2023–2024, Bennington College awarded nine young writers from across the country.
Poetry
- First Place, “for your own good / All Men are Bad / sugar pill," Sophie Bernik, Traverse City, MI, Interlochen Arts Academy
- Second Place, “They grind up racehorses / all her things have gone far away / Bedtime Stories for Little Curses,” Seoyon Kim, East Greenwich, RI, Wheeler School
- Third Place, “Exam God Hands You While Dawdling Before the Pearly Gates / False Elegy / Homecoming,” Ava Chen, Wellesley, MA, Phillips Academy
Fiction
- First Place, “1000,” Kekoa Dowsett, Portland, OR, Jesuit High School
- Second Place, “Guide to Being a Girl When You’re Not One, Actually,” Faith Reasoner-Fellows, Castaic, CA, Castaic High School
- Third Place, “Holiness in a Downtown Apartment; A Bible Lesson,” Moriah Hogans, Dothan, AL, Dothan High School
Nonfiction
- First Place, “Death of the Pointe Shoe,” Addison (Addi) Moss, Pacific Palisades, CA, Stanford Online High School
- Second Place, “17 Hail Marys,” Venya Sharda, Fremont, CA, Washington High School
- Third Place, “Metamorphoses Caught in Transition,” Roark Petermann, Walden, NY, Valley Central High School
Past Winners
The Young Writers Awards has accepted tens of thousands of submissions and awarded nearly seventy writers in the last 10 years.
2022–2023 Winners
The 2022–2023 winners included students from the United States, Mongolia, India, and Pakistan.
Poetry
- First Place, "Manhattanhenge / Scrapyard Blues / What moves the needle," Katie Hwang, Dalton School, New York, NY
- Second Place, "Ghazal for Matrilineal Multiverse / Appetence of Vietnamese Daughter / Moonlight on the Ganges," Sunny Vuong, BASIS San Antonio, San Antonio, TX
- Third Place, "parking lot supplications / Cassandra / (clementine) peel," Anaya Marei, homeschooled, Stockton, CA
Fiction
- First Place, "A Story Woven From a Bucket of Milk," Enkhjin Gantumur, School 1 of Ulaanbaatar, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
- Second Place, “Untitled,” Caroline Anthony, The High School of the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston, TX
- Third Place, "‘How have you been?’ ‘Unlike you,’" Shambhavi Sinha, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Collegiate Public School, Chandigarh, India
Nonfiction
- First Place, "Diagnosis of Familial, Lateral Curvatures," Joanna Liu, Lexington High School, Lexington, MA
- Second Place, "Cat in a Box," Kat Davis, South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville, SC
- Third Place, "Riddled Realities," Emaan Abbasi, Lahore Grammar School, Lahore, Pakistan
2021–2022 Winners
Winners represented Hong Kong, Poland, and the United States, including California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and South Carolina.
Poetry
- First Place, "How Did Li Bai Die? / How to Turn Into the River / Suns," Ran Zhao, King George V School, Kowloon, Hong Kong
- Second Place, "Broken Abecedarian for America / Ghazal for K / Fish-bodied," Jessica Kim, La Canada High School, La Canada, CA
- Third Place, "In Which My Mother Asks When the Hell I’m Getting Baptized / Etymology of Paternity / Bible Study Ghazal," Ashley Wang, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville NJ
Fiction
- First Place, "Observations made at the Lu Family Dinner Table, New Year's Eve, 2019," Sunshine Chen, Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, MA
- Second Place, "A Language is a Story," Olga Musial, 33 Copernicus High School, Warszawa, Poland
- Third Place, "I Leave the Six Blank" was written by Rachel Kenley Fry and attributed to another writer, who submitted the work. This never should have happened as the contest requires students to submit original work. We apologize to the writer for this wrongful attribution. Measures have been taken to guard against plagiarism in the future.
Nonfiction
- First Place, "The—Lovely—Red—Skirt," Youjaye Daniels, South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenvile, SC
- Second Place, "Somewhere in Southern Florida," Vivian Zhu, Adlai E. Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire, IL
- Third Place, "Family Portrait as a Gutted Fish," Danny Liu, Lake Highland Prep School, Orlando, FL
2020–2021 Winners
Winners in 2020–2021 stretched across the country from Middlebury, Vermont, to San Francisco, California.
Poetry
- First Place, "When You Wish Upon a Star / [letter to durga] / Sightseeing," Aanika Eragam, Milton High School, Alpharetta, GA
- Second Place, "a sudden nostalgia that i am meant to be somewhere else / The Bedroom / Etymology of Loss," Olivia Yang, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA
- Third Place, "Girl Sonnet / Honey Ghazal / Shelter, Water, A Bite to Eat," Madelyn Dietz, Interlochen Arts Academy, Interlochen, MI
Fiction
- First Place, "Somewhere Nearby Connecticut, There's a Clan of Vampires and a Woman He May Never Know," Alyssa Wilson, South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville, SC
- Second Place, "Dinner of Three," Wes Davis, Henry Clay High School, Lexington, KY
- Third Place, "Birthday Party," Katarina Ivkovic, Hunter College High School, New York, NY
Nonfiction
- First Place, "Dissecting Matryoshka," Stefania Bielkina, The Dwight School, New York, NY
- Second Place, "Skin Test," Indigo Mudbhary, Lick Wilmerding High School, San Francisco, CA
- Third Place, "Gifted," Rebecca Orten, Middlebury Union High School, Middlebury, VT