Guest Author and Student Awards Featured at Writer’s Day
On Monday, August 18, Writer’s Day returned to the Upper School with a visiting author and student awards for creative writing. “After two long Covid years, the English Department was thrilled to be able to bring back Writer's Day with a visit from the award-winning mystery writer and former Flint Hill English teacher and Department Chair John Copenhaver,” said Maia Schmidt, Flint Hill’s Middle and Upper School English department chair and teacher.
Copenhaver’s second novel, “The Savage Kind,” was published in the fall of 2021, and he provided students with insight into the process involved in writing and publishing. Schmidt added, “Since Writer's Day, many, many students have expressed their joy and gratitude for getting to participate in three writing workshops and to hear Copenhaver's moving personal story about his personal experiences as a student at a Virginia boarding school. Visiting writers are often wonderfully inspiring and Copenhaver did not disappoint!”
During an assembly in front of the entire Upper School student body, students were recognized for their creative writing achievements, including:
- Devin Dunn ’24 — Grade 9/10 Creative Writing Prize Winner for "Floating on a Nutshell."
- Zoe Bredesen ’22 — Grade 11/12 Creative Writing Prize Winner for "If the Roles Were Reversed."
- Cooper Brown ’22 — Richard Rouse Essay Prize Winner for his essay "Evolution of the Tragic Theater.
- Sarah Sirhandi ’23 — who won the Freshman/Sophomore Creative Writing Prize last year for her story, "Under the Mango Tree" — received a certificate of merit for fiction from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
Upper School English Teacher Christine Allred also announced that Flint Hill’s student literary magazine, "The Rough Draft," received the distinction of Gold Medalist for its 2021 issue and subsequently won a Silver Crown Award.
