Student Winners Announced for “Writer as Witness” Essay Contest
Each year, ĢƵ first-year students come together around a single common reading. This year, it was Ashley Shew’s Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, a timely book that sits at the intersection of technology studies, biotech ethics, and disability studies.
All students enrolled in first-year writing were also invited to join an essay contest inspired by the book. This year, the winners were Chloe Raymond, Gabrielle Fish, Lucas Powers, and Berit Rosenstiel.
The contest was sponsored by ĢƵ’s Writing Studies Program and the Campus Store and judged by a committee of Writing Studies faculty, including Daisy Levy, Adam Tamashasky, Kim Ross, and Jermaine Jones. The committee receives a wealth of submissions each year, spanning genres, topics, and voices—and selecting the winning essays is challenging.
“This year, our winners represent the breadth and depth of what young writers are capable of—they are all uniquely sophisticated and bring their own experiences and insights to powerful conversations,” says Levy. “Two of the essays spoke with urgency about the need for a more courageous and authentic approach to teenaged mental health, and one that used wry humor mixed with compassion to send up the quagmire of TikTok with respect to breakups and intimate relationships. Another writer mixed reflection and personal growth with analysis of queer representation in popular culture. Finally, the grand prize winner combined their own meditations on ‘wilderness’ to blend cultural commentary on the natural world and a critique of an Anthro-centric worldview.”
The combination of all these essays, says Levy, “makes it clear that these writers are deeply curious about and committed to making sense of themselves and the world in which they live—and to do so with acts of writing that are expansive and attentive.”
Here are some excerpts from the winning essays:
Chloe Raymond
Interwoven Wilderness: We are the Wild
Recipient, Grand Prize
The wild can be beautiful and tranquil, but it can also be chaotic, unwieldy, and dangerous. For this reason, humanity often tries to beat nature into submission, using technology and innovation to control the uncontrollable, often with disastrous results.
Chloe reflects on nature and humanity after spending nine days on the open road, from Georgia to Washington state, camping all the way.
Gabrielle Fish
Positivity Posters
I wish no high schooler will need to experience the darkness of contemplating suicide—I also recognize this is an idealistic if not impossible wish. So instead, I hope. I hope for schools to stop the silence. I hope for stigmas to be lowered. I hope for student voices to be heard. I hope that if a fifteen-year-old girl attempts to take her own life and goes to school the next day she is not greeted with untruthful positivity posters, but instead dialogue, honesty, and a realistic approach to hope.
Gabrielle explores the ways that schools (and our society) approach teen suicide—and the deadly mistakes they make by using silence and “positivity messages.”
Lucas Powers
Am I A “Gay Best Friend”?
Through letting down my guard and being accepted authentically by my friends, I realized that the media had no power to dictate my authentic expression or to define me into any binary stereotype. Even when met with resistance by straight ‘friends’ who would exploit my authentic expression for laughs, I eventually reached a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between identity and LGBTQ+ representation, and how the issue is so much more significant than any specific portrayal.
Lucas confronts one-dimensional portrayals of the LGBTQ+ community and calls for society to accept queer people as unique individuals.
Berit Rosenstiel
Breakup Season: The Internet’s Most Unnecessary Hoax
In the digital age, young people are exposed to a whole host of novel ideas and creations every day. In just the last year, I feel like I’ve seen the rules and regulations for a healthy relationship change in front of my eyes, and I can’t help but feeling like we’ve lost the plot.
Berit examines the role of social media on relationships, whether “breakup seasons” are real, and more.