“My Story, My Vision”

“It takes great courage for students to submit writing to strangers to evaluate and comment on it,” Tri-Valley Writers member Patricia Boyle said. “I’m proud of the students who entered the contest and took the risk of sharing their work.”

With 126 students from 13 schools submitting 171 eligible entries, we had a banner year! There were 34 nonfiction pieces, 87 poems, and 50 short stories. Congratulations to all students who entered and especially the winners.

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2026 Award Winners by Category

Literary Nonfiction:

First Place: Ria Ramchandani for “Words Unspoken”

Second Place: Toby Zhou for “The Library at Closing”

Third Place: Jasmine Ye for “What He Didn’t Take”

Honorable Mentions: Sadhana Nair for “Every Note of Hope”; Divya Mittal for “the dual-use capabilities of a knife” and “pooja”; Sahana Panchal for “After the Rain”; Lara Macalino for “Threads of Her Strength”

Poetry:

First Place: Yujin Shin for “First Grade Lesson Plan”

Second Place: Jasmine Ye for “What Grows After” & Rana Riddhiman for “A Quiet Promise”

Third Place: Pranav Srikar Shivva for “Inventory”

Honorable Mentions: Toby Zhou for “Conservation of Memory”; Claire Spinka for “The Seasons of Persephone”; Aahana Lohia for “Same Sky, Different Hemisphere″; Suhani Goyal for “Secondhand Smoke”

Short Story:

First Place: Aahana Lohia for “The Box That Held Everything”

Second Place: Yujin Shin for “When My Mother Could Fly”

Third Place: Ramie Kan for “Running Away”

Honorable Mentions: Keerthi Eraniyan for “Orbiting Home”; Veda Raman for “The Things We Choose to Forget”; Ellie Kim for “Thanks, Dementia”; Yurui Li for “The Carvings Beneath the Old Camphor Tree”