Kelsey May named rising star in fiction

At 9 years old, Kelsey May read J.R.R. Tolkein's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and it lit a fire in her.

"I wanted to write a cool story like that," said May, a senior at Sisters High School, "but I didn't know how."

May will take one giant leap toward that dream when she accepts her 2010 Rising Star Award for Creative Writing at the opening event of The Nature of Words' annual fall literary festival in Bend.

Along with a boost to her confidence, she will receive a $100 prize, a scholarship to attend a writing workshop and an invitation to read from her winning entry at the Rising Star Awards ceremony on November 3 at Central Oregon Community College's library.

"We received many high-quality entries from students in Oregon and Washington. Kelsey's success is to be applauded. We look forward to honoring her," says Louise Hawker, Nature of Words' assistant director.

May's first reaction was disbelief as she opened an e-mail last week announcing that she'd won the fiction competition in her age group for her short story "Drowning."

"I saw my name, jumped up to tell my mom, ran back to double-check, then ran and told her," she recalls.

Next she e-mailed her Creative Writing teacher Colin Price.

Says Price, "I don't think I could have been more excited to hear about her winning the contest if I had won the award myself.

"She's worked hard both on her own and in class to become a better writer, and I think this award is proof of her dedication to the craft. ... More than anything, she has internalized the process of writing."

May has taken virtually every writing class offered at the high school, including an internship with Price. She believes she has benefitted from a fresh approach Price is taking with his students.

"Over the years I've discovered a few very talented students who wanted to become writers," says Price. "When the first few walked through my classroom door, I don't think I had the knowledge or the maturity as a teacher to be much help to them.

"I decided if I really wanted to be an effective teacher of writing that I need to go back to school and to try being a writer, not just teaching it."

Price is putting the finishing touches on his thesis for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing while applying new methods to fan his students' creativity.

Students like May are given total independence to work on projects of their choosing, making the class "much more relevant," according to Price.

May reworked "Drowning" until she felt it was a story worth entering in the Rising Star competition.

"It's basically about drowning as a metaphor," she says. "It's about God pulling me out of what goes on in my life. As I rewrote I moved away from the abstract to more concrete details. The character is on a boat, falls in the water and is rescued."

May sees creative writing as an art form - a way to express herself and process daily life.

"I'll single out the emotion of the day and write about it. I write a lot," May says.

She'll have plenty of writing opportunities in the coming weeks, as she turns her attention to college applications. While May hopes to be a published author someday, she has determined that she doesn't need to major in English to advance her writing career.

"I want to be prepared for anything else God may call me to do," she says.

On a mission trip to Oaxaca, Mexico this summer, she "fell in love with a city and its people" and opened her mind and heart to more diverse opportunities.

"I have a fascination with other cultures. Why not go around the world and serve and write about it? It can benefit my writing - to create realistic scenes from a broader knowledge of cultures."

As she speaks, she holds in her hand an application for Biola University in Southern California.

She's leaning toward a major in Intercultural Studies, and hoping for a spot in Biola's Torrey Honors Institute, which uses the Oxford tutorial style and integrates a heavy dose of classic literature and writing.

This wasn't the first year May considered entering the Rising Star contest; her teachers regularly promote it. But this year she believed she just might be ready.

Awaiting the results over the summer, May felt vulnerable and anxious as she hoped and prayed for an Honorable Mention to "legitimize" her hobby.

"It's the first time I've put myself out there," she said. "It's a real encouragement to me that I got such a positive response."