A dream. A light bulb. An idea.

For Power of the Pen, writers are going to need a lot of ideas to make the team. Yes, a team–not of athletes but of writers. They compete against other writers from across the state in impromptu creative writing. In this competition, writers have forty minutes to spontaneously compose a story about a given prompt. The writers must do this three times, and each round, their writing is ranked against their opponents from other schools in order to earn points toward individual and team honors.

To make the school’s team, writers need to be in the top six of their grade. The adviser, Mrs. Saunders, begins her search for talented writers by obtaining teacher nominations.  Teachers submit the names of students whose writing or creativity stands out. Each year, around thirty to forty students try out for the team, and only twelve are selected for competition. According to Mrs. Saunders, she is looking for “creativity, an authentic voice, and a writing style that captivates readers.”   She added, “Most people would be blown away by the stories these students are able to produce in forty minutes.  They are extremely talented.”

The following students have been selected to represent Mayfield this year:

          Seventh Grade–Matthew Kallmeyer, Bennett Meacham, Ilana Miller, Danielle Musi, Hailey Nelson, and Gloria Price

          Eighth Grade–Michael Chen, Tandyn Hirsch, Gianna Somrak, Katie Voronkin, Molly Xiao, and Ofelia Yeghiyan

These individuals will practice over the next several months in preparation for the first tournament, where they will compete against more than two hundred writers from schools in the area at the district tournament in February. At the various district tournaments across Ohio, the top six writers from each grade level compete.  About 7,000 writers from all over the state begin at the district level. It’s the starting line for the race to states.

The regional competition for the local Mayfield area, held at Hudson Middle School in April, has about 200 writers at each grade level.  These students represent only the top 50% of the writers in each district. Last year, Mayfield writers earned several individual awards as well as two fourth-place finishes by the seventh-grade team. Additionally, Mayfield Middle placed fourth overall in the region.

Last year, four Mayfield writers–including returning members Gianna Somrak, Molly Xiao, and Ofelia Yeghiyan–made it to states, the highest level of the Power of the Pen competition. Wooster College hosted the event in May. Only those who finish in the top 25% at regionals advance to states, which means the top 700 writers in the state of Ohio make it to the final tournament. The sprint to the finish line.