Written by: Andrea Griego, Student Support & Wellbeing Coordinator
YCIS takes great pride in our students’ learning and their range of artistic talents. One of these talents is creative writing. This year, YCIS Pudong Primary students had the opportunity to enter a writing competition for international school students across China. Sponsored by LittleStar Magazine, when the winners were chosen, YCIS Pudong students were winners in many ways.
The short story writing competition theme was NOW. All entries had to be no more than 2000 words and participants had to follow strict format and eligibility guidelines. We were pleased to find out that in the “9 yrs & Under” group we had two winners: Abbie Pan 2ndPlace and Emma Willemsen 3rdPlace. In the “10 yrs & Under” group, Griffin Pebbles, Carrie Jiang and Riley Ip were all Complementary Prize Winners. The winning stories were also published in the LittleStar annual anthology.
We were able to catch up with two of the winners, Abbie and Emma, who will now have published work to share with their family and friends and an experience that they will remember forever. We caught up with them recently to hear what they had to say.
Q: Why did you enter the competition?
Abbie: “ I like writing and my friends do too. My mom also encouraged me to enter but I want to enter the contest. I’m already planning a story for next year.”
Emma: “The competition sounded interesting and I already had an idea that was calling to be put on paper.”
Q: Abbie, I hear you were able to attend the awards ceremony in Beijing. How was that experience?
Abbie: “We took a train to Beijing and I liked that I was interviewed by the judge Livia Blackburne, who is a famous author.”
Q: Emma, how did you feel when you heard you had placed in the competition?
Emma: “I was excited and glad that my mom had also encouraged me. My family was really excited too.”
YCIS is very proud of these students. Please click below links that are the girls’ stories:
Now and Then by Abbie Pan and Now by Emma Willemsen.