Writing South Carolina: Selections of the 7th High School Writing Contest

By Ellis McLarty

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• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Educational Foun
• Release date: Dec 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087999845

Book preview

WRITING SOUTH CAROLINA 

Volume 7 

Selections of the Seventh High School Writing Contest 

Edited by the students of Finding Your Voice: Writing and Editing for Life (a South Carolina Honors College course) 

Instructor: Aïda Rogers 

Steven Lynn: Dean, South Carolina Honors College 

Designer: Jennifer Ciotta 

Grand Judge for this contest: Elise Blackwell, novelist and English professor, University of South Carolina 

Copyright © 2021 by The University of South Carolina Honors College 

About the cover: Tall Goldenrod (solidago altissima), the state wildflower of South Carolina, is one of our lesser-known symbols. Here it represents these young authors, our lesser-known voices, who are newly emerging and perhaps a little bit wild. 

 All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. 

Contents

Introduction    ix

Ellis McLarty 

Logan Baker (First Place) 

Mothers and Grandmothers          2 

Limehouse Bridge, acrylic on oyster          4

Hannah Elledge (Second Place) 

Goosebumps          6 

For the Man on the Side of the Road I Almost Hit with My Car          8

Charlotte Hughes (Third Place) 

sponge + soap          10 

Holly & Jolly          14

Ranya Alhadrami 

If You Think It Is Expensive, Try Ignorance          17 

Moments of Gold          19

Kaitlyn Barbery 

Chemicals in the Carolinas          22 

The Lollipop Moment          24

Kozbi Bayne     

United          26 

Is My Blood Paint to You?          29

Lily Bird 

Climate Concerns for South Carolinians          31 

A Plagiarized Personality          33

Aubrey Chapman 

Front Porch Debates          36 

Peeling Celery          38

Autumn Chaveco 

Eating Croquetas in the School Bathroom          40 

New Jersey Interlude          42

Courtney Cole 

A Smoggy Future          44 

Just Two Words          46

Sydney Fanning 

Sex Ed          49 

The City          52

Spirit Gamble 

The Problem          53 

Frankenstein          54

Danielle Marks 

Cognitive Dissonance          56 

free verse about a flower boy          59

Grace Miller 

Teen Dating Violence in South Carolina          61 

A Breath of Fresh Air          63

Kameryn Miller 

Justice at a Heavy Fine          65 

The Time I Took the Wrong Highway Exit          68

Ami Patel 

Reality of South Carolina’s Mentality          70 

A Life with(out) Language          72

Anna Peterson 

Our South Carolina Coastline – Paradise or a Pipe Dream?          74 

An Unfamiliar Face          75

Billy Petty 

South Carolina’s Unspoken Issue          77 

A Friend I Met          80

Johnny Phan 

Prepared in Mind and Resources          82 

Failure          85

Gwen Pregnall 

Literacy for Lily          88 

This One Moment          90

Caroline Quan 

Girl in the Wind          93 

Face It          94

Lauren Ross           

Enough Gun Violence          96 

Finding My Passion          98

Merena Russeau 

Unnecessary Killer          100 

My Imaginary Club          101

Bojena Sabin 

Portrait of a Gas Station          104 

Prayers from a Flower Bed          106

Michelle Schultze 

Millennium Blue          108 

Sixteen          110

Julianne Smith 

The Anti-Pastoral View of a Construction Site          111 

A Bitter Fen          112

Regan Staudt 

Making Time for Mental Health          115  

The Phoenix          117

Amber Tu 

A Song for the Future          119  

The Letter C          121

KhaFee Walker-Lewis 

How Would I Change South Carolina?          124 

Talks with Mom about My Future          126

Micah Washington 

Unequal Opportunity Education          127 

Anne of the Library          130

Riley Watson 

Ripples          132 

The Geode of Life          134

Caroline White 

Driving into Disaster          137 

Accidental Angels          139

Julianne Williamson 

Color Blind          141 

Culture Shock          144

Josiah Worch 

Make Our Roads Safer          145 

Wake Up          147

Christen Worthington 

Abstain from Misinformation          150 

The Beginning of Ann Worthington          154

Acknowledgments          167

Introduction

Hostile Hospitality

ELLIS MCLARTY

In my beloved Greenville, South Carolina, exists a web of living time capsules. These neighborhood relics encapsulate my childhood’s sunshine-warmed, chlorine-stained summers. Amongst the historic Colonial homes, wrinkled black-and-white photographs, and Pepsi bottles so expired that sugar hugs the glass in crystals, I skipped, learned, and grew for eighteen years.

As a White, pigtailed little girl, I thought nothing more of my hometown than the comforting sense of familiarity it offered. Naiveté proved a shield from the less desirable traits of my southern upbringing: the heavy, stifling humidity, the endless mosquito bites, and the nosy, front-porch-sitting neighbors to name a few. Still, even more than these charmful quirks, my innocence blinded me from the rudimentary inequities present throughout my sheltered, day-to-day life.

My school, church, and neighborhood are whiter than many care to admit. I cannot remember seeing restaurant customers, neighbors, or church friends who did not look like me. My life was monochrome; I despise that fact. Although de jure segregation supposedly no longer exists, discriminatory practices and policies continue to plague our state. In Greenville, restaurants, residential areas, and community organizations are still masked in systemic discrimination. Even our infrastructure is rooted in racism: my neighborhood’s streets do not connect to those of the adjacent, primarily Black neighborhood. This exclusory city-planning exists from the Upstate all the way down to where sand and sea meet in the Low Country, creating a lack of diversity and inclusion in countless entities and organizations. 

I often wonder how so many White South Carolinians are able to turn a blind eye away from fellow brothers and sisters in need. I hear White southerners keep diversity out of their own neighborhoods by shouting N.I.M.B.Y while simultaneously glorifying gentrification of more diverse neighborhoods. I see South Carolina having one of the lowest-ranked educational systems in the United States, then watch funding get taken away from our public schools. The list continues.

Yet, after reading these selections, I have reassured faith in South Carolina’s ability to change this complacent narrative of inequity. These skilled high school writers do not shy away from the Southern dichotomy of hospitality and hostility. Socioeconomic injustice, racism, sexism, educational disparity, lack of mental health awareness, and more have deeply moved their hearts and minds. It is with open arms that we, as readers, must embrace the concerns presented to us. Through careful consideration, may we grow from our shortcomings and share in the promise of a South Carolina as beautiful as these selections beg us to imagine. Oh, how wondrous that would be.

Ellis McLarty is pursuing a dual degree in music performance and mathematics in the South Carolina Honors College. A native of Greenville, South Carolina, she was a student in the 2020 Finding Your Voice: Writing and Editing for Life course in the SCHC.

Editor’s Note: As with previous contests, the Grand Judge composes a prompt for the finalists to respond to within forty minutes. Novelist Elise Blackwell chose this:

Writers’ material often springs from random encounters and observations – an unexpected meeting or an overheard conversation, a stranger witnessed or a peculiarity noticed. Identify such a moment from the last month or two of your life and use it in a work of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction. Maybe something you noticed while shopping will be the jumping off point for an essay. Perhaps you’ll write a very short story about someone you passed on the street. Or maybe you’ll write a poem about a place you wound up in because you were lost. The moment can be a large or small moment in your life as well as a large or small part of the work you create. 

The moment each finalist wrote about in this impromptu round of the contest follows their submission about making South Carolina better.

Finalists

Bottom Row, left to right: Spirit Gamble, Danielle Marks, Charlotte Hughes, Kozbi Bayne, Merena Russeau, Caroline White, Courtney Cole, Caroline Quan, Grace Miller

Second Row, left to right: Ami Patel, Sydney Fanning, Aubrey Chapman, Johnny Phan, Micah Washington, Anna Peterson, Ranya Alhadrami, Lily Bird, Riley Watson, Regan Staudt, Grand Judge Elise Blackwell

Back Row, left to right: Kameryn Miller, Kaitlyn Barbery, Billy Petty, Christen Worthington, Gwen Pregnall, Julianne Williamson, Lauren Ross, Khafee Walker-Lewis

Absent: Logan Baker, Autumn Chaveco, Hannah Elledge, Bojena Sabin, Michelle Schultze, Julianne Smith, Amber Tu, Josiah Worch

Photograph by Ryan Dawkins 

1

Logan Baker

Mother and Grandmothers 

You’ve given me all the parts of yourself  

you love and tease up with extra hair spray  

or tie down in front of the mirror. You’ve fed me  

your vernacular, your stories, your legacy  

printed on my skin in spider veins like cracked ceramic glaze.  

That spiral staircase we all keep falling down together  

tethers me to something bigger than myself. 

I’ve inherited the fast-growing nails, slow-growing hair, paranoia.  

The bless your hearts and the frogs in pockets and the God-willing  

and the creek don’t rise and when the cows come home.  

It’s salt over shoulders and a spoonful in the pasta water  

and always to taste. It’s shut the door, you’re letting all the air out,  

and not airing out dirty laundry. And it isn’t always enough, 

though it feels like it should be.  

I fall in camaraderie with my own generation, all of us  

prone to turning to Google for answers at night, 

when only the trains are running and the Air Force base  

across the river has already signed off  

with that ghostly rendition of Taps.  

The next morning my search history is a rabbit hole  

of how to find a sense of identity and hobbies  

and macaron recipe easy and turritopsis dohrnii  

and a whole menagerie of Psychology Today articles,  

because surely they’ve stuck some poor guy’s last name  

on this feeling. And feeling guilty because I’m pretty sure  

most people just call it adolescence.  

See, I think it’s a lot easier to find my identity in material things  

like the shampoo bottles in my shower, which say I’m supposed to

be  

thick and full with 24-hour body and "enriched with collagen

amino acids."  

And I hope they haven’t patented that filler-flex complex

technology yet,  

because I think a lot of times I still fall flat. 

Another thing: I think that ever since you taught me  

what temporary meant, I’ve been obsessed with goodbyes. Let’s run  

down that checklist one more time: three I love yous, two hugs 

around the neck, sometimes a kiss on the cheek for good measure,  

one more, hold on, oh, and drive safe, call us when you get home, all

that  

in no particular order. And I think I inherited that from you, too,  

that you’ve programmed in my DNA the worst moments  

of your lives: the crash, impact, the silence  

before the phone call. And I understand you  

because I understand that it’s a fraught kind of love.  

Recently I’ve been sleeping, or not sleeping, under the stars  

on my ceiling and realizing  for the first time  

that they’re only plastic. And I think you might understand  

when I say that, lying in bed at night, listening  

to that spectral music from across the river—and maybe  

I’m already dreaming, because that final call  

sounded hours ago, I know—I’m right on the verge  

of finding it, whatever it is that I’m looking for,  

but by then I’m already asleep. The four of us 

breathe deep in unison. 

Limehouse Bridge, acrylic on oyster

I didn’t know I would think about him afterwards, 

the man I saw that weekend, but it’s because of everything else, 

the fresh cigarette smoke and salt, the December water cold and

folding 

over itself at the shore like so many thick-knit scarves, the white

dust 

that painted the soles of my boots, that I still remember him. 

We’d pulled off right before the bridge, my father and I,  

because I wanted to collect oyster shells,  

smooth and unbroken for painting. 

The man sat, window rolled all the way down,  

no radio, no heat, no sound in the wind,