The 2009 KAC Youth Contest had three categories: Poetry, Fiction and Non-fiction.
See also: 2009 Youth Writing Awards Event Photos
Poetry Judge Alberta James Daw writes poetry, essays, articles, short stories and children’s books. Her poems have been published in The Mid-America Poetry Review, The Kansas City Star, and these anthologies: Handprint in the Woods, Season of Light, and Water and Rock.
Message from the Judge:
“Thank you for writing poems that let me taste, see, hear and even smell what is happening in them and how it feels. Your poetry reminds me how it is to be a child or teen learning about yourself and the world. By the way, we keep on learning about ourselves and the world our entire lives. Thank you for writing with honesty, humor and even irony.
A good way to make a poem even better is to put it away for a day or so. Then read it out loud to hear how you can make it say and feel more exactly as you wish it to. Now that you are a writer keep a small notebook and a pencil with you at all times. Write down your good ideas, funny things that happen, or what people say that catch your ear. These bits and pieces are the “Legos” with which you can write lively poems. As the Greeks say, 'Excelsior!' or 'Upward and Onward!' ”
—Alberta James Daw
