Loomis Chaffee junior Tomorrow Chestnut has been selected for a 2026 Achievement Award in Writing by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).  

Tomorrow submitted a series of three poems to this year’s contest, whose theme was “the joy and power of reading.” Tomorrow’s poems were inspired by Hellen Keller’s statement: “More than at any other time, when I hold a beloved book in my hand my limitations fall from me, my spirit is free.” Tomorrow was awarded a superior designation.  

The NCTE Achievement Awards in Writing were established in 1957, according to a news releaae, to encourage high school students to write and to recognize some of the best student writers in the nation. The contest is open to sophomores and juniors. This year, schools nominated 689 students.  

Tomorrow, in her submission, said that when she looked at the various quotes for this year’s theme, she was “immediately inspired” by Helen Keller’s. Tomorrow wrote that the last of the three poems, “Anywhere But Here,” encompassed “both my love for reading and how much power it has truly exerted over my life. The final poem explored transcendence but also reading as a savior.” 

The three-poem sequence was “imagined in the shape of an hourglass, and reading as your North Star,” Tomorrow wrote. “Reading establishes itself as a way of approaching the world.”