Photo: Amelia Campbell ’23 and MVS JustWrite coach Dr. Nicolas Potkalitsky.

Amelia Campbell ’23, a sophomore at The Miami Valley School, won the State Award for Excellence in Poetry at the JustWrite Ohio State Competition. Campbell was one of twelve poets from Ohio selected to submit to the state competition after winning top honors at the February JustWrite Regional Tournament. The award was presented by Ohio’s 2020 Poet Laureate, Kari Gunter-Seymour. 

“Poems rarely rise to this elevation,” said Gunter-Seymour when describing Campbell’s piece, “The Lost Freedom in Bias.” “I cannot give the poet enough praise for the courage it takes to write a poem of this nature, and the creativity in putting it all together in an absolutely perfect format.” 

In addition to the Excellence in Poetry Award, Campbell also claimed eighth place in the Division II JustWrite Creative Writing State Competition, which challenges young writers to create original works of fiction based on a prompt in a time limit of 40 minutes for each story.

“Amelia has done an incredible job developing her writing throughout this year,” said Dr. Nicolas Potkalitsky, an English teacher at The Miami Valley School and the coach of the MVS JustWrite team. “It is such a privilege to bear witness to her talent.”