Two Hudson High School students won awards in the Spencertown Academy Young Writers Contest. Rafia Tasnim (12) won first place in the non-fiction/memoir category and Arianna Camacho (12) won second place in the same category.

The judges said about Tasnim’s piece titled My Ammu, “The piece is written with remarkable clarity; it sparkles without blinding the reader. There is a refreshing lack of overwrought adjectives (and adjectives generally) and metaphors. The writer conveys the emotional content of the story with remarkable restraint and subtlety.”

Camacho’s piece titled The White-Hispanic Experience received the following feedback from the judges: “Don’t read this story as an exercise in adolescent anger and cynicism. Yes, the writer is confronting a complex, emotion-driven dilemma. But the story’s central virtue is the writer’s brutal honesty.”

Tasnim was awarded a $250 prize for her first place essay and Camacho received a second place prize of $150. You can read their award-winning essays here.