We are eager to share with you the winners and finalists of the Tenth Annual Narrative High School Writing Contest. This year Narrative welcomed free submissions of poems, stories, and essays from our global community of high school students, who responded to the prompt What I Cannot Say, I’ll Say Here.
Contributing teachers and students in the Narrative contest cover the world: in recent years, we have received submissions from across the US and fifty-five countries, including Ghana, Malaysia, Ukraine, China, South Africa, Peru, Italy, Taiwan, Russia, and the Philippines—a virtual world of young writers! In all, our Narrative for Schools programs reach more than 120,000 students and teachers in schools worldwide. This year Narrative will award $2,500 in prizes to the winning authors and their schools.
Submissions to this year’s contest were carefully considered by our editorial staff, with winners and finalists selected by our cofounder and editor Carol Edgarian. Edgarian met in one-on-one mentoring sessions with the winners to edit their work and offer advice prior to publication.
Of the winning poems and stories, Edgarian remarked, “We dared these artists to write from a place of secrecy and they responded—from all corners of the globe—with stunning wit, candor, bravery and, yes, grace. The news these days is often grim, but these young writers took that pervasive heaviness that rides on their shoulders and turned it into art that is singular and unflinching—that speaks to their hopes, fears, and a universal desire for a better life.”
• Fin Gohlinghorst, “It is not important what I was, only what I was not,” George Washington Carver Center for Arts & Technology (Baltimore, MD)
• Aden Hwang, “Poem to My Father,” Phillips Academy (Andover, MA)
• Amy Lin, “contrapuntal for my unshaven legs,” Princeton Day School (Princeton, NJ)
• Karin Matsumoto, “The Morning Dew,” Makuhari High School (Chiba, Japan)
• Serra Nalbantoglu, “How I Hold Myself When I Dance,” Greens Farms Academy (Westport, CT)
• Britta Nilsson, “The Curse,” Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation (Watkinsville, GA)
• Ayla Peterson, “The House in Which We Stay,” East Lyme High School (East Lyme, CT)
• Tara Prakash, “How do you save a house in flames and everyone in it?,” Sidwell Friends School (Washington, DC)
• Ninia Sopromadze, “Unspoken Words,” Benjamin Franklin International School (Barcelona, Spain)
• Ruoyu Wang, “For the Girl Who Taught Me Debate,” Newport High School (Bellevue, WA)
• Bella Zhou, “The Long Revolution,” Pearson College UWC (Victoria, BC)
And Don’t Miss:
And Don’t Miss:
Entry Deadline: July 31, 2025.
Entry Deadline: July 18, 2025.
