In the first-ever North Bend Library Writing Contest, held last fall, young writers from across the Valley put pen to paper and shared their most compelling works.
From poems to short stories and essays, there were no limits or requirements to what could be entered.
“Students could get as creative as possible,” said Sarah Lynch, Teen Service Librarian at North Bend Library.
Contest judges, two librarians and two student judges, selected three winners from the 150 entrants.
Fourth grader Manvi Saxena of Cascade View Elementary, seventh grade student Claire Conner of Chief Kanim Middle School and Christina Finley of Mount Si High School had the top pieces.
“There’s a lot of the talent in the Valley with the young writers,” Lynch said. “We were highly impressed by the quality of work we received.”
All three winners are either aspiring authors or journalists.
Finley entered a short story about a man torn between admitting his love for his best friend, while Conners entered in a detailed story about a man awaiting death row.
Conners said she was very surprised she had won and aspires to become a science fiction or fantasy novelist.
Saxena who had written a poem titled “The Dark,” and has had an appetite for reading since the age of four. She has been writing since she was 6 years old, said her mother, Reena.
Each winner recieved a $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble Bookstore.
The success of this year’s contest means the contest will now be held yearly.
The following are excerpts from contest-winning entries:
For Your Kiss, I’d Die; For Your Love, I’d Go To Hell
By Christina Finley, Grade 12, Mount Si High School
His name was Seth Brown, and he was the average American male. He lived in the suburbs, finding it a nice change of pace form the busy city in which he worked as an accountant, and he drove a rather beaten down black truck. He was a fairly good driver, only having incurred one ticket and one slightly broken bumper over the ten years he had been behind the wheel.
Also, he was rather fond of baseball. He thought it was the greatest game to ever be invented — soccer did come in at a close second, though. He liked playing video games and eating pizza and drinking beer. He had a large group of friends, some even from high school but most from college and his workplace, and often went out to restaurants with them or to the park to play Ultimate Frisbee.
His greatest passion in life, however, was not accounting. Or Ultimate Frisbee. Or baseball.
His greatest passion in life was a man by the name of Mark Dallas.
The Executioned
By Claire Conner, Grade 7, Chief Kanim Middle School
I sit in silence, the only sound being the eerie buzzing of the flickering light bulb above me. It is swinging back and forth like a giant pendulum, reflecting how much time I have left to live of the miserable occurrences against the paved concrete floor. When most imagine prison cells, they think of the small figures of rats running in and out of the cracks in the walls. But there are no cracks in this empty chamber.
All there is are grey, solid walls that could crush me with a single impact, so strong that no rodent could maul through them. I take a deep breath and grimace. The musty scent of bleach and mold creeping beneath the layers of plaster that have been repainted a smoggy grey fills my mouth and I shudder. It lingers like the death that soon awaits me. One would think that they would provide more luxuries for a soon to be dead man but no, they insist on imprisoning me in this wretched cell, so empty that not as much as a spider loiters across the ceiling, taunting me with its free will. The message is clear: I will die alone.
The Dark
Manvi Saxena, Grade 4, Cascade View Elementary
As the darkness falls over me,
I feel so alone.
The others ran away,
and left me all on my own.
As I pray for some light,
I fiddle with my fingers.
The dark, like buzzing bees,
pinching me with their stingers.
The clouds of fear start to part,
The joyful sun, warming my heart.
