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Logan Park High School Writing

Isla Thomas —

Logan Park has had plenty of involvement with the writing world this year. Writer’s Club ran somewhat erratically this year because our focus has been more on wider community projects and competitions beyond school.

Our student writers have had great results in all of the many competitions we have entered. Two students, Melieen Barber and myself, were awarded the prize of publication in the highly competitive national competition Re:Draft. 

Three LPHS students, Rosa Miller, Olivia Bradfield and Pania Throp, made the shortlist for this competition as well. Year 13 student Charlotte Dickie gained 2nd place in the Dunedin Secondary School’s Poetry Competition, WriteNow, with her poem The Summer House. In my role as Writing Prefect for LPHS I chose to organise The Dunedin High Schools’ Poetry Slam. In this competition LPHS students George Sabonadiere won second place and Ahi Kaitiai-Mullane gained a highly commended award.

Many students also participated in a collaborative Zine Project called Text + Image. The project saw visual art students submit photographs or paintings which creative writers then responded to mostly in poetry form. The Zine was then sold at the New Zealand Young Writers Festival Poetry Slam event. Many LPHS students were involved in making the Zine a success.

I performed in a spoken word poetry show, P**sed off, Passionate and Hopeful as part of the Fringe Festival earlier this year and have since been awarded a University of Otago Performance Scholarship to the value of $16,000 for my national performance in poetry. I have earned this Scholarship largely due to the support of the writing community at LPHS, it has influenced my decision to stay in Dunedin and continue to pursue poetry. I am extremely grateful and excited to have this opportunity.

The results for our annual LPHS writing competitions have recently been released, congratulations to all those who were awarded a placement and well done to all who entered. The results are as follows and the winning pieces will be published in the Yearbook:

Prose

First - Mary Locker - I Called Her Solitude

Second - Cuba Rust - Time Travel

Third - Alex Hall - Tumbleweed

Highly commended - Catilyn Bathgate - Exhilaration

Poetry

First Place – Josef Belton – Here is the Poem

Second Place – Isla Thomas – In Conversation

Third Place – Cuba Rust – Bridal Song

Highly Commended – George Sabonadiere – The Spanish Sun

Formal Writing

First Place - George Sabonadiere – Youth and the Ballot

Second Place- Nic Tregonning – The Horror….The Horror…of New Media

Third Place – Zak Rudin – Ethnic Minorities

Highly Commended – Maegan Steadman-Ashford – Connections within James K Baxter’s Oeuvre

I have loved my role as Writing Prefect this year and wish next year’s writers all the best.