Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) student writers won 30 Gold Key awards in the 2021 Regional Scholastic Writing Awards competition. In all, 163 Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mentions were earned by FCPS students.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, presented by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, is the largest, longest-running recognition program of its kind in the U.S. Writing categories include critical essay, dramatic script, flash fiction, humor, journalism, novel writing, personal essay and memoir, poetry, science fiction and fantasy, short story and writing portfolio.

Here are local students from area schools that earned these distinctions.

Longfellow Middle School: Angeline Zhao – Personal Essay/Memoir and Flash Fiction (Silver Key for both).

McLean High School: Avery Barnett – Dramatic Script (Honorable Mention); Nia Brockelman – Poetry (Honorable Mention); Mackenzie Chen – Personal Essay/Memoir (Honorable Mention); Ruby Chen – Poetry (Honorable Mention); Elisabeth Eick – Personal Essay/Memoir (Honorable Mention); Sabila Hasan – Flash Fiction (Honorable Mention); Jungyoon Keum – Flash Fiction (Silver Key); Christine Maubach – Personal Essay/Memoir (Silver Key); Allison Miller – Flash Fiction (Honorable Mention); Awida Neji – Short Story (Honorable Mention); Ellen Pan – Short Story (Silver Key) and Science Fiction/Fantasy (Gold Key); Sophia Pandit – Poetry (Silver Key); Abby Powell – Short Story (Honorable Mention); Mingyi Qu – Journalism (Silver Key and Honorable Mention); Maya Rahman – Short Story and Humor (Honorable Mention for both); Sofia Silva De Araujo – Personal Essay/Memoir (Honorable Mention) and Olivia Zhang – Personal Essay/Memoir (Honorable Mention).

Marshall High School: Reyna Berry – Flash Fiction (Honorable Mention); Jackson Dabich – Flash Fiction (Silver Key) and Joy Gu – Poetry and Dramatic Script (Honorable Mention for both).