This piece is a philosophy told through experiencing sadness.

Set in 1991 rural Indiana, it centers around a 14-year-old boy named Westly, who endures journeys of self-discovery, love, and friendship, under the cloak of a family and community that doesn't accept him. It is told through multiple perspectives, and over the course of 5 years, as he struggles with love, and freedom in contrast to the expectations of who he is supposed to be.

The piece Seedling is written about my feelings towards the fact that my sister will be moving to college in less than a year.

This is an excerpt from a short story that's based on a scene from a DnD game I was playing with my friends. In the game, it was our first look into the eerie crime sect of the city we were exploring.

The story deals with aspects of mental health especially in regards to people of color in America and there treatment.

A poem, telling the story of a sorceress, a warrior, and their wolf familiar defending a caravan from bandits.

My poem describes the pain, the internal and external suffering that is dealt to women in this world. The message that so many have tried to convey, the message that so many refuse to hear.

This piece of writing is a recollection of a moment when I felt the most alive - in the midst of an electric orchestral performance at Davies Symphony Hall. After the performance, I was just positively wired with energy - and I just knew I had to eternalize this.

I often doubt myself and think I am not capable but I know I am. I haven’t wrote in a while simply because sometimes I don’t know how to put everything going on in my head or every emotional I feel onto a piece of paper but I know for a fact i’ll get back to it.

This piece began with a concept that came to me randomly: what if I wrote a flash fiction of someone running away from himself? I then began brainstorming scattered ideas of physical manifestations of mental concepts. These included light and darkness, shadows mirrors, music metaphors, and the landscape. Most of my ideas didn’t make it into the final piece.

My inspiration for writing this piece was my fascination with how the powerful forces of the ocean’s tide and the moon’s pull are connected.

I decided to do thorough and constructive research on slave treatment and write my poem utilizing the analogy. My work in no way encapsulates the pain that black slaves endured, but it does provide a raw image of what slavery looked like in many places for these people.

This piece was inspired by pomegranate seeds I found on the ground. They symbolize life and fertility, but as darkness and blood.

I have a hard time expressing myself verbally, so being able to express my thoughts and emotions through my writing is something that is very valuable to me. I write from my heart, using my experiences to inspire, and my raw feelings to fuel my pieces.

My great-grandmother is my role model because of her strength, determination, and optimism. She lives in a senior home, and visitors have been prohibited from accessing it until this past August due to the Covid restrictions. I remembered being so excited to see her in person finally. When I got home after the visit, I took out my writing journal and wrote this poem.

My work is inspired by self-image, dissociation, and primarily mental health issues. I felt that these poems went together because they were both about mental health and they both got deep into the topic.

I wrote this poem with the intention of giving it an intricate format and using color, and I feel like it is one of the most creative and visually appealing pieces I have written.

Lullaby was originally written as a short story, but I always knew I wanted to adapt it into a screenplay. I saw the Creative Youth Awards as an opportunity to finally do that, and this script is the final product.

Overall I wrote this because I wanted to experiment. I don’t write stories very often and I wanted to give it a shot. I hope it’s tolerable enough to enjoy and possibly pick apart!

This piece is meaningful to me because the idea is one of my favorites and I think that it really captures my writing style.