Sandburg students earn fiction writing awards

Over 40 students submitted fiction pieces to Sandburg’s short story contest this fall.

First, isn’t it enticing enough to enter a contest with prizes like... prestige, a handshake, and also gift cards? What if that handshake, however, were from literary giant-amonggiants and Visiting Writer Stuart Dybek?

Students and faculty narrowed the field of over forty entries down to 5 finalists who were then sent to Stuart Dybek.

Before Dybek awarded the top prizes to students, he expressed his shock upon learning that all three finalists were only sophomores. There is a sophistication about each of the pieces that seems far beyond high school students, he shared with an audience of 450 students and staff. Because it was a contest, he had to separate 3rd, 2nd, and 1st prizes. He clarified, however, that outside of the award, the three pieces were equally strong.

Emerging above a pool of talented and enthusiastic writers were Nathalee Lococo who took third for “Can You See Me?“ a gripping and eerie story about a teenager in seemingly doomed circumstances who returns to visit the ghost of a little girl who occasionally appears near a pond behind her property.

In second place, Andy Xiao’s piece “All the Time in the World” bends both time and reality and takes the reader on a looping journey in hope of finding redemption and forgiveness.

Finally, taking first prize was a story titled “Help Me” by Marissa Arrigoni which gives voice to a teenage girl whose suicide is entirely mysterious until her best friend finds familiar and revealing handwriting in the bathroom stalls closest to their high school English class.

Each piece is captivating, haunting, and executed with a deft expertise that is seemingly beyond the years of the students who penned them.

The ongoing Visiting Writer Series at Sandburg is funded by the District 230 Foundation and planned and executed by English teachers Tom Maguire and Kathryn Guelcher. Authors judge then award finalists in the morning when they come for a reading. Authors additionally put on an afternoon workshop for students who entered the writing contests.

Guelcher and Maguire expect to confirm and announce the the spring visiting writer, a Chicago poet, in the new year.

Authors Kathleen Rooney and George Bilgere visited last year which was the first year of the series. Learn more about this fabulous series at their website: https://visitingwritersplus.wordpress.com/