Writing Club Hosts First Annual FrightWrite Contest
Priscilla Ng
Staff Writer
The American High School Writing Club started off the year with its first official writing contest, FrightWrite, a Halloween themed challenge.
Participants could submit any form of writing, prose, poetry, even six-word stories; the only requirements were that submissions were a maximum of one page and had to be submitted by 11:59 PM on October 21.
“The Writing Club is new so we wanted an event that people could participate in,” Writing Club president Julia Jen (11) said. “It [seemed like] a good way to introduce the students of American to what we are about, as a club, and provide an engaging event that can entertain people.”
The event helped to increase club membership and provide an opportunity for students to create nonacademic writing.
“The contest was fun because it lets me be more creative than writing for English class usually does,” Molly Farmer (12) said. “I wasn’t [a member of the club] before, but I joined the Facebook group after submitting my piece.”
Like Farmer, many other students submitted their own entries in hopes of winning the grand prize – a $25 Amazon gift card. In fact, the Writing Club received so many pieces that the judging process had to be changed to accommodate all the submissions.
“Originally, we were going to release all the submissions so students could vote on all of them, but since there are too many, the officers will pick the top five to ten best pieces,” Jen said. “Then, we’ll send those entries out to various Facebook groups so people can vote on their favorites until Halloween when results will be announced.”
With the success of the FrightWrite contest, students are looking forward to more events in the coming school year.
“More contests like this [themed] one would definitely be fun,” Farmer (12) said. “Maybe providing writing workshops would be useful.”
Overall, the Writing Club is “pleasantly surprised with the level of interest people had in [the contest]” and would like to hold more events for members in the future.
“We’re planning on holding a book making service learning event around the holidays,” Jen (11) said. “We also want to have a book drive, a poetry slam, and student tutoring throughout the year.”
With one event already successfully wrapped up, students will have much to look forward to this year.
Eagle Era 