Students Win 34 Awards in Writing Contest
Twenty Loomis Chaffee students won a total of 34 awards across multiple categories in the 2025 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Connecticut Writing Region.
Six students won Gold Keys, including two by junior Shane Lischin. Gold key winners advance to the national competition, with medalists announced on March 26.
Junior Julia Liu won three silver key awards and four honorable mention awards, all in the poetry category.
The students’ work was recognized for its “outstanding merit in originality, skills, and the emergence of a personal voice and vision,” according to a letter informing Loomis of its winners.
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards started in 1923.
Gold Key
Junior Aanum Khan: “Killing Doves” (Poetry)
Junior Shane Lischin: “Roots in the Silence” (Personal Essay/Memoir); “The Language of Streetlights” (Poetry)
Junior Ji Yee Chung: “This is How You” (Flash Fiction)
Sophomore Katie Pham: “Të Nhà To Home” (Poetry)
Freshman Tidal Fisher: “Toilet Morphing Math” (Personal Essay/Memoir)
Silver Key
Freshman Doyle Kim: “Appreciation” (Personal Essay/Memoir); “The Biggest Struggle Korea Faced After the Korean War” (Critical Essay)
Junior Lin Zhang: “calculus me.” (Poetry)
Junior Julia Liu: “Eclipse Apologia” (Poetry); “Nocturne for Impermanence” (Poetry); “Proximity Theory” (Poetry)
Sophomore Celina Xiong: “Eve’s Apple” (Poetry)
Junior Alex Park: “Fish-bodied” (Poetry)
Junior Will Hall: “Peinaleopolynoe” (Flash Fiction)
Sophomore Ria An: “Tetris” (Poetry)
Honorable Mention
Junior Aanum Khan: “A Sudden Departure” (Short Story); “Death Meets Love” (Poetry)
Junior Will Hall: “Blind Mole Rat (Spalacinae)” (Flash Fiction)
Junior Julia Liu: “Boomerang Theory” (Poetry); “Daybreak” (Poetry); “Ma Tells a Story While Cutting My Hair” (Poetry); “State Lines” (Poetry)
Freshman Sejin Park: “Can Artificial Intelligence Exhibit a Form of Thinking Similar to Humans?” (Critical Essay)
Senior Jessica Mulligan: “Countering Cultural Constructs” (Critical Essay)
Sophomore Lilly Autry: “F.O.B.O. (Fear of Bleeding Out)” (Short Story)
Sophomore Anya Mocciolo: “For Her” (Poetry); “What the Constitution Said to the White Girl” (Poetry)
Junior David Shim: “Redefining the Generational Torch” (Personal Essay/Memoir)
Junior Nina Gitlitz: “Sin, Virtue, and the Truth of Beauty” (Critical Essay)
Junior Lin Zhang: “The American Dream: A Day in the Life” (Humor)
Sophomore Alicia Tay: “Too Tall” (Poetry)
Sophomore Ria An: “What the Letter ‘L’ Said to the Child” (Poetry)
Junior Annabelle Chan: “Your Obstinate Feet” (Flash Fiction)