Source: Coronado Unified School District
Coronado High School sophomore Sierra Burton took first place in the CHS Creative Writing Club’s sixth annual Short Story Competition. The fun contest is open to all high school students and provides an opportunity to celebrate talented writers outside of a classroom assignment.
The instructions for the competition were to write a story in your own style, 5,000 words or less, in any genre, responding to the prompt: “A hidden scar that reveals an uncomfortable truth.” Students submitted their stories anonymously to the judges panel, which consisted of six faculty members and two senior students.
For her winning submission, Burton chose a flash fiction short story she authored about a young girl who partakes in a split second of empathy that leads to a horrifying realization about a time-worn tradition centered around the Christmas tree. Her 422-word story was titled “Decorated Corpse.”
“As a kid I always felt sympathy for the tree and I thought this story showed an interesting dilemma around the tradition of cutting down a tree,” Burton shared about her first-time entry in the competition. “I heard about the competition last year and didn’t get anything done in time so I made sure I got it done this year,” she said. Burton shared that although math is her favorite subject she has always liked writing short stories.
“This year we had nine entries and they were all unique, well-written, and fun to read,” said Josha Chao, the faculty advisor for the Creative Writing Club. The students in the club designed and distributed a poster in December announcing the competition and encouraging their peers to participate. “We ended up with nine entries, which our eight judges deliberated over,” shared Chao. “The judges read all of the stories and met together in January to discuss the entries and choose the winners.”
In addition to Burton, other recognitions included second place to Roxy Langevin who wrote a 4,856-word literary fiction piece titled “The Magenta Ribbon,” and third place to Morgan Maske for her 5,000-word fantasy story “Hope, as Ashes Fly.” Honorable mention awards went to Zoe Miller, Ronin Moulzolf, Sophia Gresham, Emma Olsen, Sophia Bhandari, and Lily Kirk-Raissi.
The club met on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 for the awards ceremony. Mr. Chao presented the awards, which included laminated certificates along with a selection of prizes including novels, book store gift cards, Moleskine notebooks, and a custom graphite pencil portrait by Mr. Chao, who is a talented artist when not teaching English at CHS.
