lyrical prose

Poetry·Celie Kreilkamp, age 12 — Rain transforms a small city into a sanctuary, wrapping it in gray blankets of mist while revealing simple beauties in puddles and lightning.

Story·Luke Zellman — A five-year-old girl contemplates the nature of waiting after missing a horseback ride, discovering through conversation with her father that waiting gives life meaning.

Story·Annie Strother, age 12 — A five-year-old girl sits by a lake at sunset, contemplating why everything in life requires waiting, until her father helps her understand its purpose.

Story·Emily Villano, age 7 — A wild white mare evades capture through generations, teaching her foal survival before accepting her own mortality in the crystal mountains.

Poetry·Danny Musher, age 11 — A pond at dusk becomes a cradle of stillness as autumn winds rustle reeds, rushes peer at their reflections, and night settles like a soft blanket.

Story·Julia Echternach, age 12 — Two sisters defy their mother's rules about a tire swing, then spend an afternoon picking berries at a neighbor's farm, savoring summer's simple freedoms.

Poetry·Natalie Lam, age 12 — Rain transforms from mist to downpour, its gray fingers reaching through fog and pine trees, as the speaker celebrates the wet beauty of their Pacific Northwest home.

Story·Rachel Johnson, age 13 — A Cuban-American boy finds solace and identity through a secret friendship with a bull after his grandmother's death, defying his assimilated family.

Poetry·Isabel Taylor, age 13 — A young writer expresses the desire to dissolve boundaries between self and nature, imagining feet sinking into dirt, floating as water, swaying in trees.

Poetry·Sam Brandis-Dann, age 11 — A prose poem traces summer wind through sensory moments — sweet taste, ruffled hair, fireflies — until winter arrives and only memory remains.