Inklings Book Finalist Spotlight – Chapter Five

About the Inklings Book Contest

Each year, the Inklings Book Contest celebrates youth writers in grades 3–12. Winners revise their stories with a professional mentor and are published in our annual anthology. Finalists receive editorial letters with revision guidance and are featured on our Inkwell platform.

This post offers a sneak peek at several finalist pieces. Click through to read each story on the Inkwell, where young writers are encouraged to share their voices and connect through storytelling.

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Inklings Book 2025 Finalist Spotlight

Chapter Five: Haunting Memories

The stories and poem in this fifth chapter of our Inklings Book 2025 Finalist Spotlight focus on characters who have to reckon with difficult memories. These youth writers perfectly encapsulate how memories of the past can pain, frighten, and even haunt characters. 

Dance

by Zaynab Ali
(5th grade)

You danced on stage

As I watched from the audience

Eyes

Sparkling, full of admiration

As you moved so gracefully

So smoothly

Across the stage

A Pirouette

A Plié

A Cabriole

A Grand Jeté

Then…

A thud…

Campfire Stories
by Rae Feldman
(9th grade)

“You hear something?”

Maggie looked up, cursing as she sliced her finger on the can opener. Once she successfully opened the can of noodles, she looked up, the blood dripping down her wrist. “No, I didn’t hear anything,” she answered.

Adam frowned, looking around. “I couldn’t make that up.”

“Maybe you’re hallucinating.” Maggie sucked sauce off her finger. 

Bugs clung to the heavy trees. The stars’ glow cast a hazy light over the campfire. The darkness seemed to thin under the gleam of the moon. 

“All this time in the woods is getting to your head. Don’t you leave, too.”

The Whisper Of The Wych Elm

by Sanskriti Singh
(10th grade)

Even before the shadow took John, Ava’s husband, she knew she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t a monster under the bed or a ghost rattling chains. No, this was different. It was a constant, prickly feeling, like a spiderweb brushing her skin, that someone, somewhere near was watching. Always watching. In the quiet of her studio, surrounded by her paints and the soft click of her camera, the feeling grew stronger….

A chill that wasn’t from the drafty windows, a whisper that wasn’t the wind, she would turn expecting to see a face but there was never anyone there. 

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