Courtesy Photo Pictured here are the winners of the 2019 North East Michigan Student Writing Contest, sponsored by Brush Creek Writers. From left to right are Caedmon Noeske, Jonathan Logan Price, Grace Baldwin and Olivia Herron. Not pictured is winner Joshua Price.

Brush Creek Writers recently announced the winners of the annual North East Michigan Student Writing Contest. Four winners received $100 each, and a grand winner received $200. Awards were presented June 16.

The contest began in 2014 as the brainchild of Allan James Grund, who felt the group needed to do more to encourage young writers. The contest is open to students in grades 7-12 who reside in North East Michigan, approximately east of I-75 and north of M-72. Students may attend school outside this area. The school may be public, private, parochial, charter, on-line, or home school.

This year’s winning students are: Joshua Price for “Prisoner of Pretense” (the cost of fear); Grace Baldwin for “Seven Wildflowers” (the dream of freedom); Jonathan Logan Price for “Selfless” (what all soldiers are); Olivia Herron for “La Vie En Rose” (and books are lost when freedom is lost) and the grand prize winner Caedmon Noeske for his essay “Freedom and Slavery” (Citizens are armed, Slaves are not).

The contest is supported each year by donations from Brush Creek Mill’s Teeing Up For Kids annual July golf tournament, Thrivent Donations, Chickadee Hill, Inc., and donations from Brush Creek Writers.

Brush Creek Writers was established in 2007 by Katherine Stevens. The group meets monthly at 2 p.m. on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at Brush Creek Mill, 121 South State Street, Hillman. The second Thursday of each month has a focus of prose, and the fourth Thursday of each month has a focus of poetry. We have no dues or membership fees. At each meeting there may be a prompt, there may be a lesson, and there is always time for every member to share his/her writing. The goal of Brush Creek Writers is to encourage writing of all kinds. Members vary from beginning writers to listeners to published poets and authors, who all have something to learn from each other.