Twelve students from the Revere High School Write On club are preparing to attend the upcoming PenOhio competition next month.

At the competition each writer will compete in three rounds in which they will have forty minutes to complete a fully developed short story. The team attended this competition for the first time last year in May.

Linda Corman, who has been advising the club since its beginning in 2004, described how the students started the club themselves.

Corman explained that “in middle school, they have Power of the Pen,” and when her daughter was finishing eighth grade, she and other students expressed an interest in a similar program at the high school level. The group wrote a letter to the principal, and the idea of the Write On club was approved.

Although this year marks the 12th year of the club, last year was the first time the club attended a competition. They had competed in contests such as Reflections and the Holocaust contest but never physically went somewhere to compete against other writers.

Corman mentioned that the competitions have drawn other students to come to the club meetings and commented that “nineteen students” attended the first meeting this September.

The team prepares for the competition by watching an eight week series of videos that are designed to assist writers and teachers enhance their creative writing. The PenOhio organization generated the video workshops themselves.

The 11th and 12th grade students that will be attending the competition as part of the Varsity team are Patrick Altier, Libby Duncan, Nicky Gutierrez, Jack Jester, Meghan Nadzam and Madison Umina.

Altier, a senior entering his second year with the club, commented on his experience at last year’s competition.

“[Last year at the competition] I met a bunch of really cool people [from other schools] and what we had in common was writing. It was really cool to see how their skills in writing are versus mine,” Altier said.
The Junior Varsity team, comprised of 9th and 10th graders, includes Stephanie Altier, Adia Bednarcyk, Lily Cowie, Katie Kraynak, Morgan Sedjo and Rachel Travers.

Corman described the strength of both teams, mentioning that the Varsity/Junior Varsity titles say nothing about the group’s writing abilities.

“[Both teams] should be commended for their descriptive writing style. Each team is unique and each writer is unique. [They have] strength in their creativity and unique ideas,” Corman said.

The team will attend the competition at Cuyahoga Community College on January 14th, 2017. Last year Bednarcyk and Umina received individual trophies and the team received a third place overall trophy. They hope to do as well or better at the upcoming competition.

Thomas Merrill, Revere graduate of 1983 and project director of PenOhio, commented on the organization’s long-term goals for high-school level competitions.

“[At PenOhio] we want to assure that every Ohio school is afforded the opportunity to field a high school writing team. Second, we want every other state to have that chance, too. And third, [we would like to help] writers earn college credit for competing,” Merrill said.

Including January 14, PenOhio will host five regional tournaments and state finals.