Penny Wei (Winner)

Penny Wei is a second-year student at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She is a two-time Scholastics national gold medalist and has also been recognized by the National Student Council, JUST POETRY, New England Scholastic Press Association and Storm King School, amongst others. Her works are up or forthcoming on Eunoia, Inflectionist, Aloka, Fleeting Daze and more.

Aigerim Bibol (1st Runner Up)

Aigerim Bibol is a writer from the DC area and a rising freshman at Bryn Mawr College. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Pulitzer Center, and more. She is a runner-up for Maryland Youth Poet Laureate and a 2025 Silver Medal Writing Portfolio recipient. In her work, she often explores themes of memory, identity, and girlhood.

Joanne Hwang (2nd Runner Up)

Joanne Hwang is a junior at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. She writes and edits for the opinions department of her school newspaper The Spectator, and executive produces for her school’s original musical competition. She is a 2025 YoungArts winner in poetry, and her work has been published by Just Poetry and Aster Lit. Joanne attended the Kenyon Young Writers’s Workshop in 2024. Beyond theater and thrifting books in the East Village, Joanne is inexplicably fascinated by run-on sentences, and her poetry reflects the temperamental nature of everything around her.