Caledon Library honours young writers, poets

Pictured with Caledon Public Library Chief Librarian Bill Manson are some of the winners of the library's recent writing contests - (l to r) Robert Barnes, Alyson Newman, Jamie-Lynn Hunter, Aishwarya Krishnaraj, Gautham Krishnaraj, Connor Hawley-Yan, Eric Goldrup, Matthew Van Heukelom and Mary Maw, manager of communications and programming.

The Bolton branch of the Caledon Public Library recently hosted an evening to honour a very special group of talented young people in the community. Thursday, April 19, the winners of the short story writing contest for pre-teens and the poetry-writing contest for young adults were announced.

The judges were faced with a daunting task to select winners from the outstanding submissions.

"Every story, every poem had a champion but at the end of the day we had to make some difficult choices. We encourage all of the young writers to continue to write and to express themselves in their unique voices and we look forward to upcoming contests," said Kelley Potter, manager of children's and young adult services. The Caledon Public Library would like to sincerely thank our esteemed judges, Donna Kamiel Forster, owner of Forster's Book Garden; Mark Pavilons, editor of the Caledon Citizen, and Robyn Wilkinson, reporter for the Caledon Enterprise.

The winners of the young adult poetry writing contest for ages 12-18 were: 1st place Melissa Belmonte, The Girl in the Corner; 2nd place Gautham Krishnaraj, Pray; 3rd place Ryan Robinson, Simple Beginnings. Honourable mentions went to Jade Eljabri, The Wall, and Melanie Markovic, Ruined.

The winners of the short story writing contest for ages 6-12 were 1st place, Aishwarya Krishnaraj, The Magic Shoes; 2nd place Eric Goldrup, The King's Great Sleep; 3rd place Matthew Van Heukelom, A Whistler's Nightmare, and Alyson Newman, The Bad Days with my Aunt. Honourable mentions went to Jamie- Lynn Hunter, The Little Fairy Princess with no Prince; Connor Hawley- Yan, Marinee; Gillian Chreptyk, The Legend of the Yellow Dragonfly, and Robert Barnes, The Tennis Ball.