Charleston Literary Festival
Young Writers Awards

About the Awards

The Charleston Literary Festival Young Writer Awards recognizes students with exceptional talent while promoting the transformative power of literature and encouraging creative growth.

The Charleston Literary Festival’s (CLF) Young Writers Awards seeks to elevate teen voices while supporting their talents and providing the encouragement needed to be lifelong creators. The Awards align with South Carolina ELA State Standards and are open to 9th – 12th grade students currently enrolled in a Charleston County public school. The Awards offer opportunities for recognition of teachers and students, cash prizes, and participation in Literary Festival events. The Literary Festival wishes that the recognition received will show young authors that their voices are valuable and provide them with a launchpad for careers centered in the literary arts. 

CLF’s Young Writers Awards program is committed to reflecting the broad range of voices and experiences of the Charleston County School community. This commitment to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion is represented in the invitation to all public high schoolers to take part and our resolve to conduct the adjudication process to ensure the representation of each district.

The Awards begin as a writing contest where submitted works are adjudicated by a dedicated panel of literary professionals. The works selected for recognition are based on three criteria: originality, skill, and emergence of a personal voice. Three works are selected for each of the three categories, for a total of nine awards. The selected authors will receive a cash prize, be invited to present their work at a Literary Festival event, and their work will be published on the festival’s website. Teachers of award-winning students will receive tickets to a select number of Festival events. The purpose of this program is to build a model of support for Charleston teachers and students that will in future years provide professional development opportunities with the Literary Festival’s featured authors, direct scholarships, engaging fellowships, teen writing workshops, a rich bank of educator resources, and robust alumni engagement.

    • To participate in the Charleston Literary Festival Young Writer Awards, you must be a student in grade 9 to 12, currently enrolled in a public high school in Charleston County. 

    • Jurors who review entries are asked to weigh three core values: originality, skill, and the emergence of a personal voice. 

    • Students who submit works to the Awards will retain any intellectual property rights they have in their works, including copyright.

    • Please do not submit book reports. 

    • Submissions must be primarily in English.

    • Only one (1) entry per student is permitted. 

    • No identifying information, including the student’s name, should appear anywhere in the work.

    • Please use fictional names for real people in non-fiction works.

    • Sources must be cited. Footnotes/works cited are not considered part of the word count. If a submitted work is found to have been copied from another writer or is plagiarized, the work will be disqualified. 

    • Collaborative works (a work by more than one author) are not allowed in any writing category.

    • Word count for all submitted works should be: Personal Essay maximum of 1000 words; Short Story maximum of 800 words; Humor maximum of 1000 words; Poetry maximum of 800 words.

    • If your work has been previously published, exhibited, or recognized by another program, confirm that they do not hold exclusive rights to your work before entering it to the Young Writers Awards.

    • Submissions must be made via the Google Form link provided to the supporting teacher. Works submitted in any other form or platform than the dedicated Google Forms link will not be accepted. Deadline for submissions is Monday, September 30th at 11:59pm.

  • 1) Personal Essay (Non-Fiction): Writing that describes an important lesson gathered from a writer's life experiences. The essay often describes a significant event from a first-person perspective. Maximum 1000 words.

    2) Short Story (Fiction): Writing that uses fictional narrative with a fully developed theme written in prose. Maximum 800 words.

    3) Poetry: Writing in verse. May include but is not limited to prose poetry, free verse, formal poetry, song lyrics, and spoken word. Maximum 800 words.

  • 1) Go to the submission LINK and fill out all the fields. There is no entry fee and students may submit one entry for the category of their choice (maximum of one submission).

    2) You will be asked to provide your name, your supporting teacher’s name and email address and from the lists provided you will select your school’s name, grade, and the category of your entry.

    3) Upload (copy and paste) your best work in the space provided and adhere to the category’s word count maximum. Do not upload a link to a document for your entry. After uploading your work, please review the entry to ensure that the entire work has been uploaded and the formatting is consistent (spacing and punctuation).

    4) The Google entry form will be automatically saved, and you can revise your entry form until you select ‘Submit’ at the bottom of the form. Once the form has been submitted, the form information cannot be altered.

  • As students ventured into writing their own stories they had this mind: writing is a super-powerful way to illuminate their path, their pulsating breadcrumbs of potential and forewarning. It gives them the power to show, through their own experiences, how societal forces move and impact our souls, our flesh and blood. Every student showed great courage and skill in sharing their stories. It is indeed a superpower.

    The CLF Young Writer’s initiative is important to students for the opportunity to flex.  Engaging with those highly experienced and expert in the fields of writing and interpreting stories reinforces their developing constructs of knowledge, conviction, and trust in the context of their own lives. Their stories center the nature of the human experience today and will do so a hundred years from now. - Cassie Keene, teacher at Burke High School

    I am truly so excited to be a part of the Charleston Literary Festival's Young Writers Awards! This kind of initiative is so invaluable to young people like the ones I teach. Having grown up a poetry nerd in Charleston myself, I can say firsthand that opportunities to share work and meet people with a similar interest in words are hard to come by for teenagers. This chance for kids to be able to show off and be celebrated is huge. I cannot tell you all how excited some of these kids were at the chance to be published. - N. Aubrey Moore, teacher at Wando High School

  • A group of literary professionals will adjudicate the works and score them based on three criteria: originality, skill, and emergence of a personal voice. Three awards will be selected in each of the four categories for twelve total award placements. A first, second, and third place prize for each category will be selected. Winners will be notified through their supporting teacher. First prize will be $300, second will be $200, third will be $100, and all winners will be invited to take part in an awards ceremony during the Literary Festival. Teachers of winning students will receive a total of two tickets to use during available Festival events. Winners will have the opportunity to present their work during the Literary Festival and their work highlighted on the Literary Festival’s website.

    When will I find out if I have won an Award? Award winning students will be notified of their placement on Monday, October 21st via their supporting teacher.

    If I receive an Award, what happens next? Award-winning students will be matched with a Charleston Literary Festival presenting author and will read a selected portion of their work ahead of the selected Festival session. A Literary Festival staff member will coordinate the session time with the supporting teacher and student in mind. The student will receive five tickets to the selected event for their family and friends to attend. Additional seats can be purchased through the Festival’s website.

    Who judges the Awards? A group of literary professionals with diverse experiences are selected to review and score the submissions. We do not release the names of the judges until after the adjudication process as this practice ensures that judges are scoring independently, and the process is based on merit only.

    Submission Period, Deadline and Award Notification: The submission portal will open Friday, August 30th, and the deadline for entries will be Monday, September 30th at 11:59pm. Students will be notified of their award status via their supporting teacher on Monday, October 21st.

FAQ

  • Contact Jennifer at jennifer@charlestonliteraryfestival.com and provide your name, supporting teacher’s name, and describe your issue.

  • To ensure equal access to all Charleston County High School students, there is no entry fee.

  • No, students are welcome to explore any topic and language will not be censored. Please keep in mind that winners will be invited to present their work at a Charleston Literary Festival event with the public in attendance. Additionally, if a work expresses self-harm or the harm of others, the supporting teacher will be notified of the content to ensure the safety of the student and others.

  • No. Students may submit one entry for the category of their choice (maximum of one submission).

  • Yes! Award-winning works will be published on Charleston Literary Festival’s website.

  • 9th through 12th grade at any Charleston County public school is welcome to enter.

  • Not currently, but we do hope to extend the opportunity to those students in future years.

  • Yes.

  • No. Collaborative work is not allowed in any category.

  • We encourage students to review the section ‘Category Details’ and discuss their entry with their supporting teacher.

  • Yes, we honor the chosen names and pronouns. Please be aware that the names and pronouns of selected Award winners will be public.

  • No. Works suspected to be generated by AI will be subject to disqualification.

  • Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. All works submitted must be original. Plagiarism or presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgment is strictly prohibited. Plagiarism of ideas occurs when the writer presents the ideas of others as his/her/their own. Information, interpretations, and conclusions that come from a specific source must be attributed to the source even if the original words are not used. Plagiarism of language occurs when the writer takes sentences or substantive phrases/words from a source. Writers must use quotation marks or block quotations to indicate that the words in the essay are the same as those in the original text, and writers must provide a citation* that correctly identifies the source. It is important that the writer fulfills his/her/their responsibility to the original source by being precise and accurate when quoting. Works suspected of plagiarism will be disqualified. (*The basic citation format is: Last name of the author, first name. “Title of page/document”. Title of overall webpage, date, URL.)

  • You can submit a work that has been previously entered to another program if the other contest or program does not hold exclusive rights to your work.

2023 Winners

Short Story (Fiction)

  • Alayna Merrill, Sophomore, Wando High School

    Teacher N. Aubrey Moore

    The Serpents of Eve

    The well-renowned story of Eve has been told for many generations. In it, the serpent is known as Eve’s temptation. A being of cunning and greed, there to lead her astray from God’s righteous path. The Serpent is rumored to represent many things, the most infamous being the devil Satan. What if I told you that for hundreds of years, the story that was being told of her was tainted with inaccuracy.? How would your brain comprehend it? Could you even wrap your head around the fact that it’s wrong? Though you may answer yes, my doubt of you is extraordinary. Be that as it may, perhaps you might prove me wrong.



    “The Garden of Eve” is a story made out to have occurred thousands of years ago, but the reality is something far more recent and modern. In fact, Eve’s story is happening right at this moment. Right as I speak these very words to you, Eve is struggling with her serpents. Yes, indeed, the very beings said to be the envoys of Satan himself. Eve is just a normal adolescent in this story. A student attending high school, who is just trying to make it to the end of the week. Ah...I knew you would be disconcerted. I can see the confusion in your gaze as clear as day, and practically hear the unspoken questions just hanging off the edge of your tongue. Remain patient, listener, for all will be answered in due time.



    Now listen closely, and observe rigorously. Heed her story well, for you may re-learn a thing or two. Eve went through her day as usual. Every day was the same, repetitive thing. Like a marionette whose strings were pulled into a set routine. I suppose that leaves no room for unpleasant surprises she’d repeat to herself each day, even though the internal longing for any change - good or bad - grew more and more. For some reason today felt different. Almost as if something new would happen, and it excited Eve beyond compare.
“You go on ahead without me Adam, I’ll see you at home.” 

    
She said to him, before kneeling down to fetch something from her bag. As she stood, her gaze fell upon two boys, each with smoke coming from their lips.



    “Doesn’t it get so tiring?” the boy on her right asked. She furrowed her brow in confusion and answered, “Doesn’t what get tiring?”

    The boy on her left spoke this time, “Doing the same thing over and over again, every day.” Eve flinched, for no one could ever know just how badly she yearned to experience something new.
“And what would make you think that?” 

    Her tone rose in a defensive manner that caused the boys to chuckle. Unfortunately for our young Eve, those weren’t just any boys, but the Serpents of Eve. And they were here to lure her away from the path of light.


    In her mind's eye, she could see a clear warning. A sign telling her not to trust a word the Serpents said, and not to take “the forbidden fruit,” for that would be a sin and have dire consequences. In this story, though, there is no forbidden apple. Rather instead something far worse, and far more damaging. Our young Eve politely declined the Serpents’ offering, feeling slightly deflated at the loss of a change in pace. She’d continue her day, though, just the same as the rest of the ones before. Unsurprisingly the next day rolled around, and Eve felt that rush of anticipation yet again. Surely this time something new will happen? But nothing did. At the end of the day, Adam left Eve to tidy her things, and upon standing up, the two boys from the previous day had approached her. The boys - serpents - came offering the same thing, the forbidden fruit.



    As you already know… in this telling there is no apple, but a thing that consumes teenagers by the dozen. Weed, vapes, all of these things plague humanity and destroy lives. And Eve was just so tempted by the rush. She decidedly caved to the influence of the Serpents, and took that dreaded puff of smoke. At that moment her reality turned over, flipped upside down, inside out, and nothing seemed the same. Even though she could feel that artificial happiness, even through feeling giddy, she saw just how damaging drugs were. She saw the pain, the sadness, and was filled with remorse.



    This story of Eve is one of all humankind. Do you ignore the signs of destroying yourself? Do you choose to go down the path of pain just for a temporary rush? The true demons are your own selfish desires, so tread carefully, listener, for evil cannot influence the unwilling. Learn from our young Eve.

  • R. A. J. Anderson, Junior at Charleston County School of the Arts

    Teacher Danielle Detiberus

    Prospective Apartment

    Jack walked into the prospective apartment we’d be leasing, and I followed skeptically, letting his broad frame act as a shield between me and the empty rooms. “A change of scenery,” he’d said. “might be all we need to start moving on.”

    I wasn’t overly compelled to agree. Change was something I’d become weary of; it left too many variables undefined, too many risks slip into the realm of what was possible. “How many bedrooms does it have again?”

    “Three,” he said, eyeing the view outside the hallway window before peeking his head into the kitchen. “I thought we could turn one of them into a study and use the other for some type of pet for you. Rabbits are supposed to help with anxiety. Do you want a room full of rabbits?”
I didn’t rush to reply, instead noting the large red stain on the carpet between the kitchen door and the entrance to the living room. “Do we have any idea what kind of people lived here before?”

    “The landlord said they were Italians, loud ones from the sound of it,” Jack turned to face me when I pulled on his shirt sleeve to get his attention. “What?”

    I motioned down at the stain without a word, weaving my fingers through his in a failed attempt to ground myself in reality.

    “We would get the carpeting replaced,” he promised, his brow soft and eyes kind. “And it’s too bright a red to be blood. Blood would be more browned by now.”

    I nodded, stepping around the stain anyway to lean against his shoulder. “What do you figure it is, then?”

    “Tomato sauce,” he quipped before doing the worst Italian accent he could manage. “Imagine ze’ poor Italians dropping zer spaghetti and zer un meatballs on ze’ carpet.”

    I smiled weakly and let out a sigh that I hoped would be interpreted as a chuckle or scoff before turning to look into the kitchen. It was a good size, comfortable, not small enough to make me feel trapped and not big enough to leave me exposed. I could believe a man cooked there, used his mother’s recipes while his wife poured the wine. 

    Maybe that’s what made the stain. It wasn’t necessarily a brutal encounter, someone desperately trying to escape the apartment, making it all the way to the front door only to be caught at the very last moment, stabbed in the stomach or back probably, to leave a stain that size and shape, feel hot blood spread out on the carpet beneath their trembling body as they took their last breaths. No. It was probably wine, red wine spilled by a woman with a loud and obnoxious laugh and an accent that sounded more like she was from Jersey than Europe or whatever cartoon Jack had gotten his impression from.

    The living room was so empty it had an echo, like a clean white cave too bright for bats to sleep in, and the bathroom was non-threatening enough that I could picture myself standing in front of it’s mirror every morning, splashing my face with water from the faucet and trying not to remember what I dreamed about. 

    We were close to done with the tour and I was about ready to give Jack my unenthusiastic consent to sign the lease papers and start shopping for rabbit toys and hay online when we entered the second spare bedroom.

    There were hooks drilled into the ceiling, heavy duty ones, strong enough to suspend a person from. I tried to imagine why someone would need hooks like that, a rope dancer maybe? Or a child who really wanted a hammock? But I had a one-track mind, forged for me by trauma shears cutting away at reason and a concrete buggy driven by the boogie man, a mind that skipped from hooks to chains, from chains to the woman shackled to them, suspended by sore wrists, dangling like a pendulum and praying for death to come save her.

    “Maybe, we should wait for something to open up closer to your work,” I said quietly, even quieter than I had intended. It came out as little more than a whisper.

    Even still, Jack heard me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder with a sigh. “Yeah, we can do that. But we need to work on being a bit more proactive, okay? A change needs to be made somewhere.”

    I gave the hooks one last glance before following him back to the hallway, back around the stain and out of the apartment, leaving the woman to dangle in the bedroom until someone else with a mind as twisted as mine could find her mangled body. “I’m open to the idea of rabbits.”

  • Landon Franklin, Junior at Wando HS

    Teacher N. Aubrey Moore

    Too Unimportant to Die

    The girl took a breath. Down it traveled, down her throat, down through her windpipe and in through her body like it was the first she’d ever taken. And with that breath…that first fucking breath, the girl realized a thing she hadn’t even considered until now. 

    She didn’t want to do this. 

    She didn’t want to jump over this ledge, and spiral down to the waters far, far below like a sack of ruddy potatoes. But she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t want to… right? She’d thought about this…yes, yes, over and over, every which way. She’d planned this. She knew she had. 

    So why didn’t she want to do it?

    The girl moved her foot forward, dragging with it a pebble no bigger than a Fruit Pastille. The closer her foot dragged to that terrible finish line, the further the pebble dragged too, until she crossed it, and the pebble lost its ground, and plummeted down to the wretched waters below.

    It took 6.4 seconds for the pebble (which she’d named Geoffrey) to reach the black waves. She didn’t hear the sound it made. It probably wasn’t pleasant. But she did hear her heart drop in her chest, and sink in the pit of her stomach with a salty plunk.

    The girl was an Irish lass. She’d grown up small – small home, small school, small farm…a small life. It was all she ever knew. That and potatoes. 

    The day she’d moved to the big city when things had really stopped being small. When she trudged down Wall Street with frost on her upper lip and saw all the big, big buildings, and the people in the big coats talking about their big, big jobs. It was that moment when the Irish lass realized the life, she’d been living just wouldn’t cut it anymore.

    A Ford passed the lassie on her right, swerved, and its horn came blaring like a megaphone. Grabbing a steel counterbracing which was at her eye level, the lass turned, a doe caught in headlights, and she just managed to catch it in the corner of her eye: the bird. Thrown up by some perfectly manicured hand wrapped in the dead-ends of silver-blonde extensions which were being thrown in the wind like silk. The lass ignored the lady, turned back to the ledge, and inched forward.

    February. Two months gone, two rents due, too many nights spent wondering, Why’d I leave Belfast? Why are the girls here so fucking pretty…

    February was a tough month. And the lass had known that paying the bills in the city would be difficult from the get-go. They had told her that, her mam, her da. They had told her it would be harder paying rent for that apartment than finding an empty pub on St Paddy’s, and yet, she’d blown them off. Course she had.

    The lass’s chin quivered as she gazed over the river. The bridge, she’d found it hardly an hour ago. It had looked tall enough online, but in person… Truly, she knew that not even the tallest bridge would seem high enough. No height could make her want to jump.

    April – four months wasted, and four days living in the alley between Barrow and Bedford where the lass had watched those homeless blokes roast moist pastries over open-fire metal bins. Where she now roasted moist pastries over open-fire metal bins. 

    April had been awful. 

    Lips closed, her entire body shaking, the lass stepped as close as she could. 

    She had yet to take another. Breath. Breaths were for people who wanted to live…and…

    Before she even knew it, the lass collapsed. Not forward to the ledge, nor sideways onto a pillar, but backwards all on the asphalt. 

    Her throat was dry and tasted stale, yet she didn’t feel the need to moisten it. Moist throats were for people who took breaths. And people who took breaths were people who wanted to…

    Bawling now, the lass was. Big tears, not small tears. Not her usual tears. No, these were terrible, unfamiliar tears, huge, globular, thick ones, ones which ran down her face easily and left a red mark. 

    The tears were still going when she heard the tires. They were coming fast.

    Make it quick… came the voice in her head. 

    But the lass didn’t want to die.

    She sat up straight, still bawling, her vision blurred – she could barely see the blonde extensions whip in front of her face, could hardly feel the manicured hands on her cheeks. 

    But she could hear her own voice, croaky and disgusting.

    “I was just ‘bout to kill myself…”

    The lady said nothing at first. Then she laughed. And, wiping a tear from the lass’s face, and wiping one from her own, she said:

     “Me too.”

Personal Essay (Non-Fiction)

  • Isabella Nogueira, Senior at Lucy Beckham High School

    Teacher Brooke Casperson

    Perseverance and Evolution

    My life has been a never-ending lesson of perseverance. I was almost 10. I hadn't lost all my baby teeth yet; I had just bobbed my brown hair right under my ears. Then my mom made the decision to move her, me, and my sister away from my hometown, friends, my father, and my childhood home. We only lived two hours away, but for me, we had crossed mountains and oceans to get to my new home. This was the catalyst, the start of my journey. I felt like my world was ending, which was a feeling I’d get a lot more comfortable with going forward.  

    I gave up on school; the concept of homework was lost to my poor memory. My mom was too busy keeping a roof over our heads to notice me struggling with my, at the time, undiagnosed ADHD and its side effects. Being twelve and dealing with chronic depression and anxiety plus being in middle school figuring out who I was, wasn't fun. 

    Covid hit at the end of my 8th grade year. But my life changed when I was a freshman. I fell into a nearly inescapable depression towards the end of 2020. Everything accumulated on a night 5 days before my 15th birthday, but first, I need to introduce Charlie. 

    For years, my little sister, Gabby, begged for a kitten. We had a cat, but she was always outside, and Gabby wanted a kitten of her own. So, we got Charlie for Gabby’s 11th birthday. He is the most incredible cat I’ve ever had. His little smile, his love for cuddles, and his heart full of love brought new life to our family. But I was still trapped. That night in December, I felt like a failure. I wasn’t good enough, I was too weird, annoying, untalented, and worthless. My brain was broken. Every single time I tried climbing out of the void I was in; some new darkness would pull me down. Clouds of negativity swirled around in my mind as I reached for a pill bottle, crying, but I shook the bottle a little too loudly. I heard a gentle mew and turned to see I had woken Charlie up. Just seeing me made him so happy, his purrs traveled across the room and punctured my weak little heart. I paused, looked at the bottle, looked back at him, his purrs increasing in volume. I looked at the bottle again, my eyes swelling with tears, and I put the bottle back. I curled up to him, his sweet purrs, like a lullaby, soothed my mind long enough to put me to sleep. 

    February 18, 2021, I woke up in a great mood, went to school unusually cheerful, and was greeted by my best friend surprising me with a little stuffed frog, which made me giddy all day. I think that was the best day of school I ever had. I got home, did a little of the online equivalent of window shopping, and actually got started on my schoolwork. And then the fire alarm went off. I rolled my eyes, thinking my sister triggered it with her mediocre cooking skills, until I saw her and my mom running into my mom’s room. I followed in curiosity and immediately panicked at the sight of my mother's closet spontaneously on fire. 

    I ran full speed outside to the apartment's fire extinguisher, waiting for help and for someone to call 911. I handed the extinguisher to my mother. It was dead. I ran back outside. Our neighbor came with his extinguisher to help. I hobbled on the beat-up road, barefoot, to get another one. Our neighbor’s extinguisher was dead too, and by the time I got back, it was too late. My mom’s room was filled with demonic fog, I dashed to grab my bookbag and caught a breath of that soul sucking smoke. I pulled my sister out of our room in a blind panic. She was trying to get Charlie. I screamed for the fire department to save him. I kept rationalizing that he was a cat, he’d be fine, everything would be fine. 

    5 years in that apartment, it was a crappy apartment, but my mom spent so much time and money making it home, and now, it was all gone. Charlie was 9 months old. He died hiding under my bed, scared, and alone, and it was all my fault. 

    My mind went into autopilot in an effort to protect myself from myself. I had no feeling, but the most basic emotions and reacted completely on impulse. I used to feel like I was consumed by a void, but now I had become it.  

    Sophomore year starts and I get quarantined for a whole month, my mom almost dies on Gabby’s birthday and the husk that I had become pushed all of my friends away. But things were looking up. I fell in love with acting and got into our school's first musical. I co-founded our school's colour guard and fell in love with that. Starting my Junior year, I even helped create the Rocketry Club! Most importantly, I broke free from the autopilot. It took two years and a failed relationship, but... I woke up. I’m alive again.  

    There’s an important part of my story I saved for last. At about 1:00 in the morning, February 19th, 2021, a litter of kittens were born. After a series of events, which I refuse to believe were coincidences, we ended up adopting two brothers: Bobby and Loki, and my healing journey wouldn’t be what it was if not for them. We recently got a new kitten too, Athena!! 

    As much as the fire was destructive it was crucial to my evolution and growth as a person. I’m now a Senior, I’m growing out my now auburn hair, I’m turning in assignments on time, I reconnected with my old friends and I’m healing, finally, after so much pain, I’m healing. 

  • Acadia Reynolds, Junior at Charleston County School of the Arts

    Teacher Danielle Detiberus

    Summer Days

    From the age of five onwards, my parents sent me off to my grandparents’ house during the summer, to spend a couple weeks exploring the woods and helping my grandpa with his farm. Those days are defined in my memory by my grandmother’s unending attempts to convert me to Christianity. She would read aloud from the bible when I was in the room, and the TV was constantly playing grainy recordings of Tammy Faye Messner—at least until my grandmother, Edith, found out that Tammy supported LGBT rights. Then Ms. Messner was never seen again.  

    I was raised atheist by my parents, and my mother had forbidden Edith from taking me to church, but Edith just got around that by sending me to Sunday school.  

    The teacher, James, had a strange fascination with Hell. He spent hours describing the tortures that souls underwent there, making funny noises that were meant to replicate the sounds of screams and bones breaking.  

    Edith told him about my atheism in a whisper, like it was some dirty secret, with one handheld up to her face, sheltering her words from prying eyes, and the other holding my hand.  

    The next Sunday, he called me up to the front of the class, standing at the front of the room with his arms crossed while the five or so other children in the room stared at me.  

    Edith never called him by his name, he was just “a man of God.” That’s what he was, for sure, a man of God, with a real sense for justice, so he put his hands on my shoulders and told the class that I was already damned.  

    “She’s going to be flayed,” James said, not looking at me.  

    He pressed his fingers into my arm, hard enough to hurt. “They’re going to peel her skin like an onion.” 

    He pointed straight up. “Right?”  

    The class mumbled an affirmative; he wasn’t satisfied with that.  

    “Right?” James said, louder, nodding when he got a chorus of agreements. 

    He let go of me, pushed me back towards my seat, then clapped his hands together in front of my face. “All your bones crushed just like that.” He said it quietly, just for me. 

    I went back to Edith’s house that day and told her that I changed my mind, I believed in God, just so long as I didn’t have to go back. I’d be a good Christian girl, I’d be whatever she wanted me to be.  

    I came out to Edith as bisexual when I was fifteen.  

    “What?” she peered over her reading glasses. 

    “You know,” I said, shifting uncomfortably. “I… play for both teams.” At that point, the Sunday school incident had faded into distant memory, and I was holding onto the faint hope that Edith would take the news well.  

    “Come here,” Edith said after a moment, gesturing imperiously at me like a queen at court, confident that she would get her way as she always did.  

    She led me into the hallway, then pointed at the carpeted floor. “Get on your knees and pray,” she said, her voice as hard and immutable as it had always been. Edith was not someone who was ever refused.  

    “Absolutely not,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I didn’t move.  

    “Get down on your knees and pray,” she said again, and it wasn’t a request.  

    I got down on my knees and prayed, God rest my soul. Edith covered my eyes with her palms, her skin dry and flaking, our breathing the only sound.  

    Last Thanksgiving, my cousins and Edith rented a house by the beach, a hulking thing with chipped blue paint on the ceiling and a porch that sagged towards the ocean. When the food was finished, we all went out to play soccer with a deflated ball that made a noise like a scream whenever we kicked it.  

    I could tell that Edith was declining. The cancer that she barely survived, the pneumonia that left her lungs weakened, her weak bones that fracture when she’s hugged too hard, it was all coming back with interest. The shifting of the sand made it too unstable for her to walk on, so she hobbled down the boardwalk that led to the start of the pier with the help of my shoulder and her cane. Edith sat at the end of the wood with a megaphone that she’d stolen from the neighbor and called out rule violations and the winner of each game, smiling along with the rest of us.  

    She braided my hair when we got back inside, with a hard-bristled brush that she’d owned for two decades. She detangled it carefully, with patience and some sort of lotion from a tiny red bottle that smelled like pomegranates. Despite the tremors that shook her hands, Edith was gentler than I had ever known her to be. All her energy was spent on staying alive, and she had nothing left to hate me with.  

    Christmas Eve was the coldest day of that year, the fountain in front of the church frozen in movement and icicles hanging from the trees. I spent it in church with Edith. I was given a candle to light, and I warmed my hands over the flame while the low hum of a hundred people praying became a litany in the air. The streets were deserted by the time we walked home, and Edith gripped my scorched hand with all the strength that her brittle bones could muster.  

    “I’m so glad you’re finally on the path of God,” she said, utterly sincere. “I love you.”  

    She had a habit of talking like a priest and meaning every word, with her old-blood Spartanburg accent drawing out her vowels in long lines.  

    “Love you too,” I said, and it might have even been true. 

  • Heaven Damien Sims, Sophomore at Burke High School

    Teacher Cassie Keene

    Palmetto

    I was out of school for a whole month in a facility that surprisingly wasn’t as far as the cops drove me. This facility is called “Palmetto”...



    Although my mom made the ‘crazy’ house seem bad, it was actually quite fun and the food was better than her cooking. They also respected my vegan diet and gave me fake eggs and not real ones. They may taste like plastic, but I rather that and not a baby bird…



    Enough on eggs, more on the experience.



    The first time I got there it looked like a desert, or a plain… But with grass? I did see the city bridge and some houses but they were over the alligator infested waters. Once I got an okay look outside, I got inside this small building and I didn’t really a good look, but I thought it was a prison or dog shelter from the way the plastic panel separated the officer and me with a counter under it. They told me to place my belongings on the tray and so I did. I went into the waiting room which looked a little… Fancy… pane glass windows, white walls, two sorted bathrooms with black doors, marbled flooring and a small cactus plant named Nemo on the table where another teenager sat down drawing…



    That's when my name was called even before I sat down.



    “Xania Zan?”



    I hate when they don’t say my name right… XOLA XAN... That is my name. I sat down in a chair in the small gray room. Honestly I didn’t like the room - the small window, a bookshelf to my right that was off center and no books at all. The floor was covered with a rug. I don’t think it was ACTUALLY yarn. And it was probably this lady’s hopes and dreams. That was all in her room besides that computer every doctor has… She was also rude.



    She scoffed at me when I asked, “how many months?” She can’t really get mad, she was pregnant. She told the other person, but got mad when I asked. Oh well.



    After she took my picture and literally ‘shooed’ me out of her room with her hands I was back in the clean room where I WANTED to be instead. Then before I could talk to the other girl I was being dragged to the new ‘house’ that I was staying in for two weeks. Once I got inside, I liked it better. It looked a lot like my old room in West Ashley! Brown wooden polished flooring, beige creamy walls, and a random wooden pillar which I didn't have back then but I always wanted one. The eating room was visible and looked the same as the ‘living room’ but it had a tv and crayons, markers too! No pencils though… I was then greeted with a small empty book with “XXan” on it and a little black girl who looked like little O from “Odd Squad.” Honestly, she wasn't a good person before she left but I’ll skip that.



    The front desk lady told me we were having broccoli which is my favorite! It's like they knew! Then the girl that was in the same waiting room as me appeared. She really was nice and very stable. She told me how she got here and honestly; I would have slammed my door too if someone broke my phone for forgetting to charge the dang controllers! It's stupid…



    I came here ‘cause my stepbrother was nagging me at church. I kept pleading with him to leave me be. I told my stepdad. I told my mom. I EVEN TOLD THE PASTOR AND THE DOG! No one told him to stop, but they told me to move away… I did that… He follows… So, I snapped and cursed out a whole tornado. That's when everyone yelled at me but never told him to stop pestering me… So, I ran across the street, nearly getting hit by a truck, “I don’t care!” is what I said before going to the mental hospital. I had to stay here for a few weeks and surprisingly I wanted to stay.



    The food was breathtaking… in the morning: eggs, bacon, pancakes or waffles in the afternoon: Ribs, broccoli, smashed potatoes, and corn. Then at night it was a big treat! I don’t even wanna tell anyone what it was! This didn’t seem like a mental facility! This was a break from humanity!
They even had therapy for everyone including me. It was relaxing, especially with the nice smell of lavender alone in my room.



    The frogs chirping and the fireflies I caught outside, eating their leaves and glowing in the glass bottle that looked like an ‘old timey’ honey jar.


    I closed my eyes as my wind chime sang outside my window next to everyone else’s.