NJ Student Writers Win Big in WTNJ Contests

Madison, NJ — Writers Theatre of New Jersey has just announced the high school winners of both the thirty-fourth annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival and the first annual New Jersey Youth Poet Laureate contest! Young writers from all over the state are represented.

The high school winners of Writers Theatre’s New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival are: Packing by Michael Villanueva, a student at the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical Schools – East Brunswick; Trust No One by Gabrielle Poisson, a Newark Academy student; Learn Your ABCs by Elijah Gaines & Jaleel Lindsey from the Greenfields Residential Community Home; Smile by Kianni Keys from Newark Academy, and Hot Dogs and Feminism by Jasmine Sharma, a student at Bergen County Academy for Visual & Performing Arts.

The winners of Writers Theatre’s first annual New Jersey Youth Poet Laureate Contest are Mel Xiao, a Newark Academy student from Livingston; Eileen Huang, a High Technology High School student from Holmdel; and Nicole Tota, a Cherokee High School student from Marlton. The three winners will represent North, Central, and South Jersey, …