Several Westerville middle school students are now published authors. They include:
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Charis Deacon, a sixth-grader at Blendon Middle School;
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Sophie Dunn, a sixth-grader at Blendon;
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Aiden Fitzwater, a sixth-grader at Blendon;
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Isabella Giannetto, a sixth-grader at Blendon;
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Mandalyn Heckelman, a sixth-grader at Blendon;
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Will Jones, a sixth-grader at Blendon;
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AJ Keir, a sixth-grader at Blendon;
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Cameron Marsolo, a seventh-grader at Walnut Springs Middle School; and
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Scout Sjoblom, a sixth-grader at Heritage Middle School.
The middle school students penned “mini-sagas” (a story of 100 words) for a writing contest sponsored by YoungWriters, a Massachusetts-based group that organizes a series of writing contests for elementary, middle and high school students. Winning compositions are published in books that are distributed to schools.
Students learned of the opportunity either through their teachers (English/Language Arts teacher Jamie Bouscher at Blendon, English/Language Arts teacher Tammy Saltzmann and gifted coordinator Lisa Huelskamp at Walnut Springs and Debbie Pellington, the gifted coordinator at Genoa and Heritage middle schools) or when the district’s middle school gifted department shared the opportunity with students as part of its Schoology course for those who have a gifted identification in grades 6, 7 and 8.
Students learned their pieces were selected for publication earlier this month.
“It was really cool and surprising,” Sjoblom said.
Marsolo was also surprised to be selected.
“It was a quick process and my teacher made it easy,” he said. “It was fun to do it."