Anoka County has fostered a new cohort of literary minds with the announcement of the winners for the 2024 Write On! Teen Short Story Contest. According to an update from the Friends of the Anoka County Library, local students across middle and high school grades competed for top honors by submitting their short fiction.
The contest ran through April, inviting students in grades 6 through 12 to unearth their stories and it culminated in a remarkable outpour of imaginative works from the youth. The winners' stories, spanning from otherworldly gambits to futuristic visions, are now compiled in an ebook anthology available for readers, showcasing the diverse voices of Anoka County's next generation of authors.
Winners were celebrated across three age categories, with the notable entries being 'Soulbound: A Demon's Gambit' by Gwen Udvig clinching first place among 6th to 8th graders, while the 9th and 10th-grade bracket saw Julia McBride’s 'A Clear Step in Two' taking the top spot. For the seniors, Rhett LeBeau in his penultimate year of high school resonated with judges with his story 'The Rising Sun is Fear', securing his first-place standing in the 11th to 12th-grade tier.
Other distinguished tales such as Genevieve Rajkowski's 'The Hope of the Moon' and Alyssa Carlson's reflective 'Water Fountain' each earned them a silver rank in their respective grade divisions, showing that the future of written art in this Minnesota county vibrantly kicking. For those eager to explore the narrative depths of young Anoka County wordsmiths, the anthology and more details about the contest can be discovered on the Teen Write On! page linked above.
