Since 1984, the West Virginia Young Writers Contest has been encouraging students across the state to share their writing. The contest emphasizes the importance of writing in all subjects and aims to showcase and celebrate students’ work by publishing and displaying their stories.

Teachers and school leaders in each county encourage students to submit their writing.

Students first submit their work at their school, and then the best entries move on to the county level. Students can write about any topic and in any type of prose, such as stories, essays, memoirs, or narratives. However, poetry is not accepted, and submissions must not include pictures or graphics. The student must complete the work during this school year and should use the process writing method, which involves drafting, revising, and editing.

First place winners from the county contest will be entered in the statewide contest that will be judged by experts from the Central West Virginia Writing Project at Marshall University. They will look at aspects like ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence flow, and correctness.

Winners in the county level contest from Elkins High School are Peyton Ross, Chanel Dowell, and Jordan Edin.

Junior Peyton Ross was third in the grade 11-12 contest. “Jumping into it is the best option, and getting a teacher to help you out with writing and look over that stuff for you before doing it for practice which can benefit a lot,” Ross said.

Sophomore Chanel Dowell, placed first in the grade category 9-10 and she said the experience was very nerve-wracking. “I wrote the story not knowing for sure if I’d win or not and when I found out I placed first, I was very excited”, Dowell said.

Another sophomore, Jordan Edin placed third and said that the experience was fun and a chance to get one of her pieces of writing out. ”I wrote a story about a detective trying to solve a murder and overall the experience was good and she enjoyed it very much”, Edin said.