The Literary Magazine is kicking off the school year with their second annual short story competition. This year the theme is: “Eyes.”

“We were just spewing out random ideas and happened to choose eyes from them,” said Alyssa Wu, a sophomore on the Literary Magazine staff.

The students that wished to send in a story submission could write about anything associated with the given theme. Last year’s the theme for the competition was “Block.”

“[Our goal] is to just encourage students to be more creative,” said Mr. James Demer, sponsor of the Literary Magazine.

As an incentive, prizes were given out for the winners of each grade level and an overall winner. The grade level winners each received a Fujifilm Polaroid camera and the overall winner will receive an iPad mini. Last year’s overall winner was Erika Ansen, a Swedish exchange student visiting for the year.

“I felt really confident in my story, but I did not think that I would win!” said Ansen.

Her story, titled “Flashblocks,” is about a man who is haunted by flashbacks of a car accident in which he lost his family.

“The car had crashed into a brick wall,” said Ansen, “and he felt guilty for their deaths.”

Ansen’s story was published in the Literary Magazine’s 2015-2016 edition of Etcetera. The winning submissions will be published in this year’s edition of the magazine. 50 stories were submitted for the competition. Stories, poetry, and artwork can also be submitted throughout the year to be published in the magazine.

Students taking Writer’s Workshop, the creative writing class with either Ms. Swank or Mr. Avett, were required to write a story plotted around this year’s contest theme.

“It was fun, but I’m not much of a writer,” said Sonia Karson, sophomore in Swank’s creative writing class. “I may do it again.”

The winners of the competition were announced Nov. 15 at the Literary Magazine’s annual Coffeehouse event: For the freshmen class, Ava Lewis, for the sophomore class, Isabel Bradford,  for the junior class, Amber Combs, and for the senior class, Alana Preval. The overall winner was junior Caitlin Jeffers.

“I was really not expecting it,” said Jeffers. “I’m proud of myself and I really want to thank Mr. Avett and Mr. Demer for helping me improve my writing skills.”