ITHACA, N.Y. — An Ithaca High School junior has received a top writing award after captivating judges together with her stupid, genuine non-public tale, approximately her offbeat extended family. Wynne Williams-Ceci is one of the younger writers nationwide and the best pupil from IHS, who acquired the Gold Key Award this year’s Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
Williams-Ceci’s private story, “My Seven Crazy Cousins Take The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” received the Gold Key Award within the “humor” writing class, and her ebook assessment of “In the Garden of Beasts” through Erik Larson also obtained an honorable point out within the vital essay category. Though she concept her e-book review might earn her a prize, she said she became “extraordinarily surprised” her non-public essay became identified.
“I almost submitted it simply on a whim,” Williams-Ceci stated. “I always notion of it as kind of a childish story, no longer as a few brilliant pieces of literature that humans would need to study. But I guess in hindsight, and it’s simply exciting to read about the antics of other humans’ lives and the loopy adventures they pass on; that is why I assume it received ultimately.”
Since 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have diagnosed young artists and writers across the usa for their exemplary work. Students in grades 7-12 can publish work in various artwork and writing classes and sculpture, pictures, online game layout, poetry, journalism, and critical essays. According to the agency’s website, luminaries in the visual and literary arts examine submissions on 3 standards: originality, technical skill, and the “emergence of a private voice or imaginative and prescient.” This year, over 340,000 works were submitted. Among the ninety,000 submissions that received an award this year, Williams-Ceci, 16, was amongst those who obtained a Gold Key, this system’s highest award.
The award has long gone to a few notable humans, consisting of Sylvia Plath, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lena Dunham. Though Williams-Ceci turned into amazed to win the award, her English trainer at IHS, Elizabeth Campbell, said she turned into no longer so amazed. “Wynne’s a great writer,” Campbell said. “She is a quiet and insightful student. She places her satisfactory attempt into each venture. She is a gifted author, and they relentlessly revise and edit her written work.”
Williams-Ceci said Campbell had been a supportive trainer who turned into instrumental in her winning the competition. “She’s carried out so much to shape my writing that I’m so thankful for, so it changed into sincerely exceptional to be recognized using her due to the fact I take into account her one of the maximum inspirational writers in my lifestyles. Since day certainly one of this faculty year, she’s been notably supportive, and they have supplied me nothing but help turn into a higher author. I probably owe her a massive part of winning the opposition.”
Williams-Ceci’s private tale is a funny recollection of her 2017 Thanksgiving experience to go to her prolonged circle of relatives, the Simons. She describes the adventure while her own family and “seven crazy cousins” go on her own family trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
She stated she ended up telling her cousins approximately her award-winning piece when her mother introduced the accomplishment up at her own family reunion. “I’m a terrible liar, so I panicked and said it is just about this crazy family we understand, and my little cousin looked me dead in the eye and stated, ‘Wynne, is it approximately us?’ And I misplaced it and instructed them. They nonetheless have not read it, so I might need to rewrite it in a slightly greater flattering mild,” she stated.
As part of winning the Gold Key, Williams-Ceci acquired a certificate and a gold key pin. However, she said the maximum vital reward she earned became a letter detailing each wonderful and constructive comment for her work. “By a long way, the maximum valuable element I get from this contest, and the cause I suppose I entered in the first place, is due to the fact you get feedback from the judges on your writing, which is a great importance to me due to the fact I actually need that constructive criticism if I’m ever going to develop and maybe do large works of literature.”
While Williams-Ceci enjoys writing instructional portions and personal memories, she said her preferred kinds of writing are poetry and songwriting. She also has an interest in choral tunes and track ideas and presently sings in the Ithaca High School Choir. As for the future, she said she sees herself pursuing psychology and hopes to submit her books inside the subject at some point.
Campbell said extra college students have to explore writing as a way of self-discovery.
“Often, you do not know what you reflect onconsideration on something until you strive to speak approximately it or write approximately it. Write to find out what you suspect, and what you sense, and what you need.”
While proud of her accomplishments, Williams-Ceci said she couldn’t have performed it on her own.
“No one gets everywhere by myself, and as extremely good as this accomplish is and as lucky as I feel to have gotten it, there’s no manner of spinning the scenario in which I got it on my own. It’s all the way to the human beings who’ve helped me along with the manner, and for that, I’m thankful,” she said.