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Bennington College2024-2025 Young Writers Awards
About Bennington College•Liberal arts college "•Has a unique literary legacy"•12 Pulitzer Prize winners"•3 U.S. poet laureates"•4 MacArthur Geniuses"•Countless New York Times bestsellers"•2 of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people"•
Young Writers Awards•Bennington launched the Young Writers Awards to promote excellence in writing at the high school level"•Goal is to recognize outstanding writing achievement by high school students
More About the Contest•9th-12th grades"•3 Categories:"•Poetry - group of 3 poems"•Fiction - short story (1,500 words)"•Nonfiction - personal or academic essay (1,500 words)"•First, second, and third place is selected in each category
Poetry: 2023-2024 First Placefor your own good i knew something once. i mean, i’ve always had a dog’s vision—grass the color of a pressed beige button down. but at least i used to know something. when the morning birds went off like fireworks and fireworks were still a federal right. now, all i see is the boys who light them, running. but after the whole thing with the chains and the rock, it makes sense, i guess, that we’re all scared of light and vultures—that the boys who make fire now can’t stop, pause, see what they created. i used to know something. something about it being unfair that i can’t see my breath in summer. something about a thin, scratchy towel. there was a window imprinted with someone else’s greasy face. but it’s all second-hand sources. seven, stomach distended in a photo of me, standing in front of a waterfall. i felt like i should’ve said something when they were done lighting the thing—thank you or run! instead, i laughed. my bad. sitting on top of another family's jungle gym with my mom—she said it was dangerous and she was right. the fuses chased their own tails until they bit them off, but i guess, i blame myself for believing her.All Men Are Bad There’ s no Pavlov to speak of, no synonym for gun. This is my house, he said. Emily Bronte moved. And so I stood a half-inch from a microphone—nested hair, blood in the cowl. I said, This is for all the recently divorced teenage girls. Wild crowds for the wide-eyed baby. They can’t do anything besides take me to another lookout, show me their impersonation of Ponyboy. Wingspan away from the Hollywood sign—is that all you have to offer? One more place to spray paint my name, come time for the Zombie Apocalypse. Baby, he said, Everyone knows who you are. Which is an easy thing to say from the back of the bar with an arm around me like a stiff ferret. Will they or won’t they? Will they what? I take back what I said about the second skin of the leather sofa, about Bukowski. He gripped my arm hard and I said, I’m sorry—I’m so sorry. I’ll do anything you want. Either he’ s pathetic or just plain evil, clad in his plaid pajamas. Can I announce, now, my sinking suspicion?
Poetry: 2023-2024 First Placesugar pill i sleep in lace. i sweat maple syrup. no stack of pancakes but i sigh a smokestack while i’m curling my hair. drybarmight be dependable but i still spray myself stiff. oh, no. no, you didn’t really think—god, that’ s so embarrassing. for you, i mean. this is not a ‘get ready with me.’ you wouldn’t keep up. i down my vitamins, lace up the boots, and kiss my stanley cup on my way out the door. i am on the up and up—i ride the skirt, not the other way around. every mirror is a fun mirror if you’re having a bad time but you wouldn’t believe it if you met me in the real world—blondeness long as a yardstick. you’d be jealous. is this ‘younger woman’ you speak of in the room with us right now? it’ s what every girl wants— president of the student body. i get on stage and thank my target demographic. the speech says, your skin is my skin and if we’re beings of light then we’re fluorescence cascading rom the gym ceiling. and when the ovation stands, you know why thunder was made for rage and auditoriums. today, i cried in an arcade. who knows what tomorrow will hold? a first kiss in the arcade parking lot? to everyone else, life was about going the distance but they had cars and i had leather interior. i was purely sentimental. they said, sophie, you can’t be everything to everyone and, man, this slumber party is a time machine. death row of garlic breadsticks. crazy then, crazy now. the sephora employee waves a gun in my face and i am still maiming faces in the yearbook but, somehow, you want me to make you a machine—spin you around while hoku plays. babe, this isn’t a sorority. i’m not gonna shake you awake to haze you then hit you with the pretty stick. my red string still runs a bee-line to the gibson girls. they said, sophie, you can’t be everything to everyone, but what they should’ve said was sophie, you can be everything to everyoneexcept yourself. it takes me five tries to swallow my iron. this younger woman hides no vogue-worthy secrets. it’s sophie’s choice, they said, still not believing that i’m jewish. still not believing i only ever watched the carousel, could never find it in me to hump the porcelain horses so hard the audience believed me. did the hairy legs just not do it for you? i have no toenails left and my lip still won’ t bleed. gun to my head and you still don’ t believe you’re not jealous of my ribs and ribboning hair, you’re jealous that, with a gun to my head, i cry the liner into a smokey eye, that i am everything to myself.
Fiction: 2023-2024 First Place1000: A one-act by Kekoa Dowsett(Fold 1: Square Base.) "(Lights up on GENNY sitting on the floor with a square of colored paper in front of her. She reaches for it, picks it up, and holds it up to the light, searching for life in its flat monochrome. She then begins folding it. Deliberately. She takes time and care to do so, pouring every ounce of her nose-scrunching focus into every crease. After some time she holds it up and, pulling the corners down, reveals a paper crane. It is simple and not very impressive. Still, she admires her handiwork for a moment before setting it down.) "GENNY "(To the crane. Or to the audience. Or both.) "Cranes. My grandpa—my oji-chan—was obsessed with cranes. He used to lean close to My brother and I Whispering stories With a sparkling glow in his eyes. Stories that made our eyes look more like his. Stories about how when we die, Cranes would carry our souls On their wings, Off into the setting sun. Stories about the day when he knew Thousands of cranes flew All at once. The day when the rising red sun fell And scarred the land of His mother and his father. Stories about the little girl. The little girl who was just like me, he would say. The little girl named Sadako. The little girl who ran races with her friends And was always in a hurry. The little girl who grew sick from the scarred land. The little hibakusha. The little girl who folded 1000 cranes, Because if you fold 6 1000 cranes, he would say, You would get one wish. A special wish. (Blackout. GENNY exits.)"…
Nonfiction: 2023-2024 First PlaceDeath of the Pointe Shoe (Using Virginia Woolf’s “Death of the Moth” as a Point of Departure) Handcrafted by The Butterfly Maker, serried layers of satin, paper, cardboard, and paste arrive at my doorstep in the morning. A pair of pointe shoes is designed by a particular “maker,” each known by signature elements and techniques. Differences are measured in millimeters but give rise to distinct qualities and preferences that engender passionate loyalties. Some have an elongated vamp, a few bear a tapered box, while others offer a shortened shank to flatter one’s arch. After a perennial process of trial and error, I only recently discovered my quintessential match, the Butterfly Maker; Clef Maker is a serviceable second though not ideal. Opening the package, the tissue crinkles and the yet unseen pointe shoes pronounce their presence with a sharp smell of leather and resin. My adopted pair are swaddled in protective muslin, but the delicious, lustrous blush veneers peek through, and their pristine wings swell with promise. I carefully unwrap these objets d’art; they are full of vitality, reflecting an almost metallic shine, sublime in their luminosity."…
Why Should I Enter?•Cultivate you writing skills"•Gain experience writing for an internationally renown contest"•Connect with mentors and teachers in the literary field "•Receive recognition "•Deepen your love and understanding of creative writing
Deadline for 2024-2025•November 1, 2024
Remember…“Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.” – C.S. Lewis