Every year, the Beverly Hills Literary Society hosts a competition for High Schoolers, in which all of our Juniors participate, to write an essay about a book that impacted one’s life. In May, they host a lunch where students dine with writers and members of the Literary Society and receive their awards. This year, North Hollywood nominated five students to enter the competition and sent three runners-up to the event, which took place on Monday, May 22. At the event, the eight Juniors, Mrs. Underwood, and Ms. Gardner were taken to a hotel in Beverly Hills, where they got to meet the author of Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi, and ask her questions about her first book. After this, the students were seated at tables with members of the Literary Society and served a delicious chicken salad complemented by a glass of sparkling cider. Dr. Haut and Ms. Spadafora, previous HGM teachers, also attended the event. A member of the Society introduced Ms. Gyasi and she delivered a speech; after this, awards were announced. One of our students, Layla Knowles, earned first place in the competition and received $3,000. (All participants won a $50 Amazon giftcard and an iPad.) Layla wrote about finding herself through such novels as George Orwell’s 1984 and Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. She found out about her win a week before the luncheon, and she was amazed and overjoyed. “I didn’t process it at first; I was just kinda shocked,” she said. At the Literary Society luncheon, Layla was called to the stage to read her essay aloud to everyone at the event. She said she was nervous before that she would stutter and “because the prompt requires you talking about a hard time in your life”, but she made it through the essay seemingly without difficulty - “because the prompt was so close to my heart, it was easy to speak and open my heart to the audience,” she explained. Because she won first place, Layla got to eat lunch at the same table as Ms. Gyasi, though Layla says she didn’t get to talk to her much. The HGM students got their books signed by Ms. Gyasi and were then driven back to school, down Rodeo Drive and through Coldwater Canyon.