The Main Street Ravenna “Virtual” Winter Writing Festival was a great way to spend a few hours each Saturday in February learning about writing short stories, poems, and children’s books.
Main Street Ravenna would like to thank our presenters who joined us virtually this year! Holding the event virtually worked out well and each workshop was well-attended! We had attendees from as far away as the U.K. and Athens, Greece joining us!
The first two writing workshops included: “A Poetic Inventory of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park facilitated by Charles Malone of the KSU Wick Poetry Center; Unleashing Creativity and Imagination by Author Stephen Schneider; Squeezing Poems Out of Pictures facilitated by Steve Abbott; and “Once Upon A Valentine”, Collaborative Writing for Sweet Students ages 5-7, facilitated by Rachel Marshall. The Ekphrastic Texture Poem by Dr. Susann Moeller of the Ohio Poetry Association and The Do’s and Don’ts of Short Story Writing by Author Seth Borgen finished out the event and the month of February.
An integral part of the festival also included our student writing contest. Students in grades K-12 in the Ravenna School District were invited to enter the contest and working with their teachers had different writing prompts per grade level which focused on the concept of “change” and how it affected them during this pandemic year. Students could write short stories, poems, and /or draw pictures to illustrate their ideas of “change” as it affected them in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Entries were judged by David Dix, Bob Larson, Amy Adams, Diane Buller, Kevin Gray, Justin Barber, and Alyssa Byrd. The winners of the writing contest include the following and the first place students will receive a prize. First, second and third places will all be published in Volume 2 of “Writing Around Ravenna”. This publication will be made available to all winners (including those from 2020) as well as school libraries and Reed Memorial Library after publishing takes place.
Our 2021 winners include:
Elementary School Winners
Grade 1
1st: Molly Jones
2nd: Brooklynn Stalnaker
3rd: Grace Petersen
Grade 2
1st: Ashley Dozanti
2nd: Jonathan Kato
3rd: Catherine Cash
Grade 3
1st: Marcus Sanders 2
nd: Michaela Marcello
3rd: Torri Murdock
Grade 4
1st: Lincoln Smith
2nd: Ryder Braybon
3rd: Jacob Doak
Middle School Winners
1st: Adelina Wunderle
2nd: Zachary Kurka
3rd: Kieran Rosander
High School Winners
9th Grade
1st: Ryan Hall
2nd: Madeline Fedor
3rd: Angelina Pantalone
10th Grade
1st: Tara Ransom
2nd: Kyla Carney
3rd: Emma McHenry
11th Grade
1st: Olivia Loucks
2nd: Will Rambler
3rd: Amanda Davis
12th Grade
1st: Joitashe Miller
2nd: Autumn Steere
3rd: Skylar Parsons
A special thank you goes out to our sponsors for this event which enabled us to continue the event virtually. They include Mike and Dianne Tontimonia, Shorts, Spicer, Crislip Funeral Home of Ravenna, David and Janet Dix, Bill and Mary Beth Barber, and Reed Memorial Library. Main Street would also like to acknowledge the special help from the Ravenna City School District Administrators and Teachers in each grade level and thank them for including this writing project in their curriculum during an especially difficult year.
Main Street Ravenna is looking forward to next year’s event in February 2022 which will be in person with a variety of writing workshops, guest speakers, book signings, and other offerings including, an independent book store pop-up shop, and a story walk on the Main Street Mile.
For more information for this event or other Main Street projects and programming please go to our website: https://mainstreetravenna.org or call us at 330-235-9509. Main Street Ravenna’s mission is to “Celebrate and utilize downtown Ravenna to establish a place where businesses thrive and people create moments together.”
