Liam Hancock

An update from our forty-fourth Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday June 12, plus some of the output published below This week, since William is on vacation, we had two special guests leading the workshop. Maddie, who is a part of William’s workshop, and Liam, who now attends Conner’s workshop, led the workshop on the topic of dystopian stories. The two young writers delved into a thorough definition of Dystopian Fiction, plus several recent popular examples of the genre. Many people reading contemporary fiction are likely familiar with this genre, as high-profile series like The Hunger Games and Divergent are bestselling examples. Maddie and Liam went through several examples, and challenged the writers present at this workshop to create their own story in the same vein. The Challenge: Write a story set in a dystopian world or modify an existing story of yours to include dystopian elements. The Participants: Sage, Chelsea, Lena A, Madeline, Helen, Margaret, Peri, Julia, Pranjoli, Nami, Angela, Jonathan, Audrey, Gia, Jaya, Peter, Sierra, Arishka, Grace, Tilly, Mahika, Mia, Iago, Charlotte, Rachael, Lina. Peri Gordon, 11Sherman Oaks, CA Picture Day Peri Gordon, 11 “I don’t think you understand,” sighed the principal. “If a child misses Picture Day, there will be no makeup date. And Picture Day is not optional.” The principal shook his head at the parent’s ignorance, although he knew that there was no way that she could be better informed. He himself did not know exactly why Picture Day was so essential, but he knew that it must happen every year and could only happen on one day of the year. The mother protested. “If I drive Robbie to Picture Day, then neither of us will be home to take care of his little sister, and the daycare is not open on Picture Day, as you know.” “That’s alright, the little girl can come along, too,” the principal said. “The younger a child gets their first picture taken, the better.” His own words intrigued and somewhat confused him, but that was alright; he was not in the government, so he had no right to know why these things were, just to know these things. The principal could tell that the little girl, lingering behind her mother’s back with the slightly older boy, was not yet in school. But her picture would be taken nevertheless. *** On Picture Day, the brother and sister, Robbie and Sophie, after some protest, put on their finest clothing for their pictures and headed off to the Picture Dome, a black building with a curved roof that let in no sunlight, which would interfere with the process. Instead, the cool building was awash with electric light. Sophie, new to Picture Day, bit her fingernails, ruining the fancy, polished look they had been forced to take on for this day. The girl declared, “I’m nervous.” Her mother scolded her, pulling Sophie’s nails out of her mouth and hissing, “There is no time for nervousness.” But the woman herself was wondering why Sophie’s picture should be taken already. Not many people knew the answer to the woman’s question. But the president, huddled in the corner with his fellow government members, knew everything. He watched as a fellow leader of his, slightly less important but still in the know, used the machine everyone thought was a camera to scan each child’s mind. Of course, it served as a camera, too, so that people would see the pictures and suspect nothing. But the school’s yearbook was a frivolous thing, a distraction. The president himself had not invented mind scanning, but he had figured out why and how it must be used. Each child’s intellectual ability affected how they must be taught to interact with others and how others must be taught to interact with them. It was all carefully planned by top scientists and politicians, so that no one would know of the well-off government members’ secret. As long as the citizens were not in charge, the president would feel pleasure. As long as the people did not control a thing, the government would control everything. And when, in a few weeks, they performed the experiment the government had planned for centuries—the one involving cloning and killing off the original, cloning the clone and killing off the original, so that scientists could make huge advancements—no one would even be aware until it happened. It was all for the best. Lina Kim, 11Weston, FL Memories in Ruins Lina Kim, 11 I pushed the charred curtain out of the way as I stepped outside. The ground was blackened with the ash of everything that was destroyed. Bones littered the ground. Smoke filled the air. My parents and I were one of the only few lucky families. We had somehow survived. I scanned the barren wasteland for a sign. Maybe there was someone alive out there, stumbling through the rubble for shelter. I went about my usual route. I went sixty steps forward, then went to the right thirty steps. I turned right again and went sixty steps. I repeated that until I got back to where I started. I kept searching along the way. I never allowed myself to go even an inch more than sixty steps away from my home. It was the same thing every day. As mom and dad scoured the earth for food, I looked for people to help. It had only been two weeks since the attack, but I had already fallen into a routine. That took up the entire morning. After that, I would go inside the small hut. It had been hastily rebuilt, but was only a very small fraction of the house it once was. It only had two rooms. I would help my parents serve lunch and we would eat. Halfway through the meal, my parents would go to find more food and search for people twice as far away from the house as I would in the morning. I was supposed to