Rockwood Students Earn Accolades in St. Louis Writers Guild Competition

A total of 10 Rockwood School District students from fourth through eighth grade earned recognition in the 2024 St. Louis Writers Guild Young Writers Awards competition.

Eighth-grader Gabby Ely (LaSalle Springs Middle) and fourth-grader Logan Heck (Woerther Elementary) each earned first place in their age category, while LaSalle Springs eighth-grader Lily Slusser earned third place.

LaSalle Springs eighth-graders Ayden Betancourt, Megan Graham, Hadley Morrell and Sofia Pavia-Higel were also among the 10 finalists in the grades 6-8 category. Westridge fifth-graders Simran Choudhary, Veda Valsa Pradeep and Genevieve Woolley were among 10 finalists in the grades 4-5 category.

Elementary and middle school writers were given a first line to their piece – “Everything changed when ... ” – and asked to write up to 500 words.

All of the award winners and finalists were recognized and had the opportunity to read or have their work read aloud at a St. Louis Writers Guild event Jan. 11, and the work of all 10 Rockwood students is published in the 2024 Young Writers Collection, which is for sale on Amazon.

Congratulations to these outstanding Rockwood student writers! Learn more about these students below.

Gabby Ely, LaSalle Springs, 1st place (grades 6-8), "CRACK"
Lily Slusser, LaSalle Springs, 3rd place (grades 6-8), "I Choose, I Pick, I Switch"

Both Gabby Ely and Lily Slusser were inspired to enter this year's Young Writers Awards competition after judges from the St. Louis Writers Guild visited their language arts class.

Their teacher, Cari Cowan, encouraged her students to engage in a free-writing activity and, if they chose, to further develop the activity into an entry for the contest. While Slusser eventually pivoted to another idea, Ely chose to expand upon her free-writing exercise.

"I was surprised. I was proud of myself," Ely said. "I didn’t know how many people entered, so I didn’t know how much of an accomplishment it was until I learned it was out of hundreds. It was cool to read my story out loud so that people could hear how I meant it to sound in my brain and through my eyes."

Ely's verse piece, "CRACK," deals with a school intruder situation.

"I wrote it in second-person perspective so everybody could relate to it," she said. "I wrote about how, for kids, it’s an accepted part of life; that’s a reality you have to face."

Slusser's piece, "I Choose, I Pick, I Switch," is a poem about a girl dealing with the divorce of her parents. She said writing about an experience that is different from her own was meaningful.

"It wasn’t about me; It was just something I thought should be voiced more,” Slusser said. "Writing is really important to get your voice out there, if it’s your own or to give someone else a voice and let them know they’re not alone. That’s one of the reasons I wrote the poem.”

Ely and Slusser both said their success in the competition has encouraged them to further hone their writing skills. Ely is even exploring the possibility of developing her story further into a short film.

"I’ve been working on that a lot lately, the script," Ely said. "It just inspired me to go through the writing process and see what about that process can lead from the writing into deeper storytelling.”

Logan Heck, Woerther, 1st place (grades 4-5), "Pirate Pickle and the Legend of the Pickle Spear"

Finalists
 

Grades 6-8: Ayden Betancourt ("No Mercy on the Front"), Megan Graham ("Open Seat in the Front Row"), Hadley Morrell ("Pennsylvania") and Sofia Pavia-Higel ("Inner Workings"), LaSalle Springs

Grades 4-5: Simran Choudhary ("The Class Escape"), Veda Valsa Pradeep ("The Abyss") and Genevieve Woolley ("The Fate of the Glowing City"), Westridge