Photo courtesy of Riley Shaner
Junior Riley Shaner was named the creative writing state champion at the NCASA State Finals of The Quill, a writing competition for middle and high school students. The competition was held at Margaret B. Pollard Middle School Dec. 2.
“It was really exciting,” Shaner said. “I was worried about the actual competition, but it turned out really well for me.”
Quill adviser and English teacher Kathleen Greenlee was excited to see Northwood represented again in creative writing.
“We were state champions three years in a row with the whole team, and this was the third time we had a winner in the creative writing section,” Greenlee said. “I’m really happy for her, and I feel like it’s going to encourage her to keep writing and be confident in what she’s doing.”
At the competition, prompts are given to the competitors, and they write for 90 minutes.
“My story was about some guy that woke up from a nightmare and opened a door into an alternate reality, and the next day he was dead,” Shaner said. “That was the prompt I got. I went off of that and made him have a mental break. I didn’t use the alternate reality because I don’t do really well with fantasy. It was him walking through a past memory that was a nightmare.”
Greenlee thinks Shaner’s past in the creative writing class helped her.
“Riley was in my creative writing class, so she was used to taking a prompt and running with it,” Greenlee said. “She was a gifted writer coming into my class, so I can’t take the credit.”
Shaner has been writing for “as long as [she] can remember.”
“I’ve always really liked to write,” Shaner said. “I started writing in 6th or 7th grade, because my teacher used to give us things to write. I realized that I really liked it and kept pushing forward with it.”
Greenlee thinks a “passion for writing” makes a state champion.
“I think the bottom line is a passion for writing, enjoying seeing how it progresses on paper and being excited for what they’re doing,” Greenlee said.
– By Madison Clark
