After nearly half a year of receiving entries, and following many rounds of judging, the awards ceremony for the LittleStar – YCIS Short Story Competition was held this past weekend at YCIS Shanghai Gubei Campus.

With a theme of “One Day”, the competition was open to students studying at international schools across China, and entries were received from 362 students from 25 different international schools. With such an abundance of entries, the judging took more than a month, with10 teachers from different international schools serving as guest judges, collaborating together to review the submissions.

The awards ceremony included judging and roundtable discussions with Ms Rashmi Jolly Dalai, a well-known, Shanghai-based author and writing instructor. YCIS Shanghai winners included Annie Ming Kowalik, Oi In Lin, Shebri Bidari, Iisha Ponkshe, and Millie Davis.

Miss Kowalik, who was also a winner in last year’s LittleStar – YCIS Short Story Competition, explained her inspiration for writing this year’s story, saying “My main inspiration was curiosity. I had a question about the environment while I was on holiday with my family and I wrote the story about how it is important to protect our whole world.”

Before the ceremony concluded, Ms Dalai provided inspiring advice to aspiring student writers, “To be a good writer, you need to read veraciously, develop your interests, and value human connections. If you glow in life, you will glow in your writing. In today’s modern world, the avenues for writers to share their work are so vast that there is no better time to be a writer than now.”

For all students, having the opportunity to enter writing competitions such as this is just one way they are able to use their learning and skills developed in the humanities programme at YCIS. For more about the Secondary programme at YCIS Shanghai, please click here.