8 Urbana students win writing award

URBANA -- Fifty-two K-8 students from the Urbana school district will be recognized on April 20 as the top entries in this year's Young Authors Awards contest. Each student will receive a certificate of achievement and a copy of the Young Authors book. The book contains each of this year's winning entries.

The top eight authors for the 44th Annual Young Author Awards include:

Haanya Abbasi, Urbana Middle School
Paio Sotomayor, Dr. Preston Williams School
Julian Rogers, Dr. Martin L. King Jr. School
Miles Rehfeldt, Wiley School
Arihant Sinha, Yankee Ridge
Rafael Lleras Buetti, Leal School
Clara Naveja, Leal School
Avery Ogolsky, Thomas Paine

Also recognized for submitting winning entries from Thomas Paine included Marie Knight-Broughton, Justin Lewis, Daniel McHenry and, Addy McHenry.

In addition to Leal's two overall winners, five other students earned recognition for their entries. Joshua Vazquez Benitez, Ivan Erickson, Diken Guevara, Maxime Guironnet, and Willa Sola will also be honored at the celebration in late April.

Other winners from Urbana Middle School included Karina Berceanu, Trinidad Cuahuey, Seth Fiscus, Alice Hauser, Muhammad Iftikhar, Harmony Lehman, Simone Marshall, Gwendolyn McLean, Austin Ogolsky, Kavinder Patel, Colton Ruud, Grace Tshimankinda, Ruby Waarala-Dugger, Christian Weiss, Nico Wiemelt, Rachel Wiley, and Andrea Williams.

Young authors recognized for their essays from Dr. Preston Williams included Gemma Douglas, Hayden Intravaia, Lucy Martin, Esmeralda Orozco, Jade Pineda Walker, Izzy Roegman, and Veronica Vargas.

Winners from Dr. Martin L. King were Pranisha Chaturvedi, Nylah McReynolds, China Endo Song, and Longhan (Alice) Xu.

Five other students from Yankee Ridge also submitted a winning entry. They include Janny Knutson, Benny Lerman, Gracelyn Lusk, Lydia Ruud, and Brianne Thurman.

Coraline Hauser and Isabel Tanner-Lane from Wiley school also earned recognition for their submissions.

The celebration program will also include a presentation from an author, who will be announced at a later date.

Spend the evening with Mexican Gothic author Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Urbana Free Library will host "An Evening with Silvia Moreno-Garcia" on Wednesday, January 26. Moreno-Garcia, who is a columnist for The Washington Post, is the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow. The book won the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic and Ignyte Award.

She also won several awards, including Locus Award, British Fantasy Award, Pacific Northwest Book Award, Aurora Award, and the Goodreads Award, for her gothic horror story about a woman whose cousin believes her husband is trying to kill her. Set in the 1950s, Mexican Gothic the lead character navigates family obligations, secrets, and greed.

Velvet Was the Night, her newest release, was published in August of last year.

Also in the Zoom meeting with Moreno-Garcia will be Gus Moreno, author of This Thing Between Us. The online talk and discussion begin at 7pm. For more information and a zoom invite contact the Urbana Free Library at (217) 367-4057.