Award-winning novelist addresses McDowell recipients

Greenhills students and families gathered this week to honor the winners of the 21st annual McDowell Writing Awards at an all-school assembly featuring novelist Sharon Pomerantz. 

The McDowell awards, named for Greenhills’ third head of school, are presented each year to students who produce the best entries in categories including essays, poems, plays, fiction/memoirs, and journalism. A typical year brings as many as 350 entries, so the competition is tough.

This year’s winners, along with a Campbell Center auditorium packed with classmates and family members, heard Pomerantz tell the story of her own growth as a writer, which she said accelerated when her family moved away from their densely populated urban environment to a more well-to-do township. She urged the winners and other young writers  to pay attention to the internal voice that tends to wake writers in the middle of the night with good ideas.

Pomerantz’s first novel, Rich Boy, won the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction in 2011. Her work has also appeared in the Best American Short Stories compilations, in literary journals, and in National Public Radio’s “Selected Shorts” collections. She now teaches writing at the University of Michigan.

Recipients will gather again April 30 in the Campbell Center to read from their work at the McDowell Showcase. This year’s winners include:

Essay
Grade 6: Emilia Palomares
Grades 7-8: Kaan Oral
Grades 9-11: Madeline Parks

Poetry
Grade 6: Esme Dutta
Martha B. Grimes Award: Zoya Uzzaman
Grades 9-12: Julia Bohm

Fiction/Memoir
Grade 6: Ana Stewart
Grades 7-8: Madeline Berger
Grades 9-11: Nina D’Ascenzo

Playwriting
Upper School: Henry Sloan

Journalism
Ian David Harris