On the evening of Friday, April 25, the Charlotte Latin School community gathered in Anne’s Black Box Theater to celebrate the publication of the 2024 edition of Blue Review, Charlotte Latin’s literary magazine. “This is my favorite evening of the year,” Tiffany Fletcher, Faculty Co-Adviser of Blue Review, said as the festivities began.

The elegant 96-page literary and arts magazine was volume 35 of Blue Review; volume 34 earned the Gold Crown Award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and All-North Carolina honors from the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association. 

In her remarks, Faculty Adviser Lori Davis spoke of how proud she was. Not only was the student work up to its usual high caliber this year, she explained, the editors were so organized, she shocked her husband by not canceling their spring-break vacation plans in favor of scrambling to make the magazine’s deadline at the printers.

The five lead layout editors of Blue Review were Hannah Hurden ’25, Isabel Yang ’26, Jackie Rao ’26, Jolin Cheng ’26, and Samora Elam ’26. Isabel, who also had fiction and visual art featured in the issue, said after the ceremony, “I enjoy experimenting and seeing what art works with what writing — it’s cool to be able to combine my love of writing and art into one thing.”

With the sponsorship of the Latin Arts Association, Anne’s Black Box Theater was transformed into a verdant enclave for the evening. Guests were treated to live music, a buffet dinner, and hot-off-the-presses copies of the 2024 Blue Review. (A few copies remain undistributed: anybody who wants one should visit Ms. Davis’s classroom on the upper level of the Horne Performing Arts Center.) A dozen students read their poems and essays and short stories, inspired by subjects as disparate as the placebo effect, the power of childhood memory, and the pioneering actress Anna May Wong.

The evening also honored another recent wave of success for the school’s literary talent: Latin students received an astonishing 52 regional awards from the prestigious Scholastic Writing Awards this year. Since 1923, the Scholastic Writing Awards program has recognized authors ranging from Langston Hughes to Sylvia Plath to Stephen King. Latin students were competing against students from independent and public schools in Eastern states, judged by originality, skill, personal vision, and voice; only the top percentile of entries earned awards. The Gold Key winners are now being considered for medals against the national competition. While Charlotte Latin awaits those results, the assembled crowd at the Black Box hailed the accomplishments of Latin’s writers.

Scholastic Writing Award 2024 regional winners from Charlotte Latin School:

Gold Key

Gabriel Carpenter: Poetry, “Graphite Bodies”
Jolin Cheng:  Poetry, “Mr. Cheng, the Teacher in Shanghai”
Connor Cruz: Critical Essay, “The Iron Hands of Censorship Versus a Defiant Grasp for Knowledge”
Meghan DuPuy: Critical Essay, “A Gut Reaction: Silko’s Use of the Belly in Ceremony”
Evelyn Haggstrom: Poetry, “The Chemical Formula of ‘Us’”
Tyler Horiuchi: "Oppressor? I Hardly Know Her: How the Major Female Characters in The Great Gatsby Represent the Progression of Women’s Roles During the Jazz Age"
Sophia Oh: Poetry, “Pick”
Tyler McAndrews: Critical Essay,  “Dead Poets Society: The Sounds of Realism and Romanticism”
Tyler McAndrews: Critical Essay, “Fahrenheit 451: How to Hide from Fire”
Reese Morgan: Critical Essay, “Poe and Cole’s Abolitionist, Romantic Relevance: A Critique of Modern Mental Institutions”
Jackie Rao: Critical Essay, “Humankind’s Future: Will the Human Race Fall?”
Karlin Smith: Flash Fiction, "The Number 3"
Isabel Yang: Flash Fiction, “Clean”

Silver Key

Claire Addison: Critical Essay, "Stalker Looking for Work? Consider the Internet!"
Andrew Chen: Poetry, “Far From the Tang Dynasty”
Noah Guggenheimer:  Critical Essay, “Forest and Flame: Dante and Blake’s Divine Metaphysical Prescription”
Austin Degenhardt: Poetry, “Stacked Desks at the Door”
Lilly Egan: Personal Essay & Memoir, “A Glacier’s Cry”
Mac Fletcher: Flash Fiction, "Currents"
Paige Fletcher: Poetry, “Old Oak in the City”
Hope Gottschling: Flash Fiction, “La Place des Créatifs” 
Evelyn Haggstrom: Science Fiction & Fantasy, “The Pill”
Jaya Iyer: Personal Essay & Memoir, “Fastening Our Bond: Weaving in the Loose Ends of the Story”
Jaya Iyer: Journalism, “The Bots Have Entered the Chat”
Tyler McAndrews: Poetry, “Guilt is a Girl”
Gabi Nolan: Poetry, “Women”
Peyton Samii: Critical Essay, “Broken Ties”
Peyton Samii: Flash Fiction, “December 25, 1995”
Jasmine Zheng: Critical Essay, “Inhumanity: Law and Slavery”
Jasmine Zheng: Critical Essay, “War’s Lovely Paradox”
Jasmine Zheng: Personal Essay & Memoir, “A Reflection on the Inability to Speak, and Families”

Honorable Mention

William Adams:  Poetry, “White Squall” 
Claire Addison: Critical Essay, "By God, They're Indoctrinating the Children!"
Charlotte Beaver: Humor, “Disobedience and Rebellion: ‘Man’s Original Virtue’ Since 1891”
Graham Blanton: Poetry, “Setting the Table in a Time of War”
Payton Desai: Personal Essay & Memoir, “Never a Box to Check”
Spencer Frost: Poetry, “Looking from New Jersey Towards New York City”
Robby Gette: Poetry, “Episodes from a Cemetery”
George Glassner: Poetry, “Inner Peaks”
Phillip Hullinger: Critical Essay, “Dead Poets Rising: Transcendence Through Allusive Symbolism In Weir’s Film and the Civil Rights Movement”
Bonner Kelly:  Flash Fiction, "Stars" 
Evan Li: Personal Essay & Memoir, “Purple, Yellow, Blue”
Andrew McDonald: Poetry, “Best Friend”
Riley Milligan: Poetry, “A Day in Debordieu”
Penina Polsky: Critical Essay, “Negative Impacts of Censorship through Auditory Imagery”
Ryan Purdom: Flash Fiction, “Little Cottonwood Canyon”
Rheaa Oberoi: Critical Essay, “GMO’s- The Answer to World Hunger and Deficiencies”
Leslie Osorio: Personal Essay & Memoir, “Hallowed Be Thy Name”
Dariyah Strachan: Poetry, “White Bows”
Isabel Yang: Flash Fiction, “Tea for Two”
Jasmine Zheng: Critical Essay, “The Confinement and Confining of a Paragon”
Jasmine Zheng: Critical Essay, “Modern Reliance on the Constitution”