Portsmouth Abbey Student Publications Win National Awards

's student publications, The Beacon newspaper and The Raven literary magazine, garnered three honors in the 2011 Gold Circle Awards for Newspapers and Magazines. The national competition, which recognizes superior work by student journalists, is conducted by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA).

The Gold Circle Awards annually honor the best work completed by student reporters, editors, designers, photographers, artists, poets, fiction writers, and other staff members of all types, either as individuals or as entire staffs. More than 13,000 entries from middle school, high school and college newspapers and magazines were reviewed over the summer.

In the 2011 Gold Circle Awards for Magazines, Jesse Bessinger '12 of Portsmouth won Second Place in the special interest magazine category "Poetry: Open (Free) Form" with her poem, "I Signed the Night Once."  Jesse's poem appeared in the 2011 issue of The Raven.  

Also among magazines, Minjae "Steve" Cho '12 earned Second Place for "Special or General Interest Magazine, Single-Page Design" for his work on The Raven.

In the 2011 Gold Circle Awards for Newspapers, The Beacon staff received a Certificate of Merit in the category for "Overall Design, Broadsheet Format."  The award was presented to Minjae "Steve" Cho '12 and Christian Barcenas '12 as layout editors.

The CSPA is an international student press association whose goal is to unite student journalists and faculty advisers at schools and colleges through educational conferences, idea exchanges, textbooks, critiques and award programs.  CSPA is affiliated with Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. From its beginnings in 1925, the CSPA has sponsored annual contests to seek out and publicize the best practices in student writing, editing and publishing.