Ligonier Valley Writers has just announced that students from schools throughout western Pennsylvania have won awards in LVW's 29th annual Student Poetry Awards. Two of those writers--Sonya Verbina and AnnMarie Stephenson--will be featured on WCONA LIVE! with special guest hosts, Ondine Dressick and Tristan Greer.

Sonya Verbina, a fourth-grader at the Valley School of Ligonier, won the Walter McGough Memorial Award, sponsored by the family of Walter McGough and Ligonier Valley Writers, for “The Aztec Animal.” Category B, Chestnut Ridge Literary Poetry Award. Sponsored by Lou and Barbara Steiner. Sonya's Bio: Hi, my name is Sonya. I'm almost 10 years old, and I really love axolotls. Axolotls are small, endangered animals that come in many colors. Anyways, my name is Sonya and I can speak a couple of different languages. I can speak: Russian, English, a bit of Spanish, and a bit of Chinese. I love to read, and I'm interested in greek mythology.

AnnaMarie Stephenson, a sixth-grader at Ligonier Valley Middle School, won 1st prize for “You're Not Here” in Category B. Chestnut Ridge Literary Poetry Award (G 4-6: unrhymed verse, any subject). Sponsored by Lou and Barbara Steiner.
AnnaMarie’s bio: My name is AnnaMarie. I have always liked writing and science, but I never thought I would win 1st place in an unrhymed poem competition! My father died when I was very young. It was heartbreaking for me. I decided that I would take that and make a poem that makes me remember him. I really miss him.

Jess Weible is a freelance writer and reporter. Her writing has been featured in the Huffington Post and various local news outlets. Her column featuring writers of the Pennsylvania Wilds appears every month in the Brookville Mirror. Jess's poetry has been published in the Apeiron Review and the Tobeco Journal. Her fiction appears in the Bridge Literary Arts Journal. She is also a founding editor for The Watershed Journal, an inclusive, regional literary magazine for the western Pennsylvania wilds.

Jess leads two writing groups, the Writer's Block Party and the Rebecca M. Arthur's Young Writers. She lives with her husband and two boys in Brookville, Pennsylvania.

Kayla Sargeson is the author of the full-length collection First Red (Main Street Rag, 2016) and the chapbooks BLAZE (Main Street Rag, 2015) and Mini Love Gun (Main Street Rag, 2013). With Lisa Alexander, she co-curates the Laser Cat reading series

Karen Craigo is the Poet Laureate of the State of Missouri. She is the author of two full-length collections (Passing Through Humansville, 2018, and No More Milk, 2016, both from Sundress Publications), as well as three chapbooks. She hails from Gallipolis, Ohio, and now lives and works in Springfield, Missouri.

Shedding his cells every seven years (as our species is so inclined) Jared A. Conti is but a shell of his former self. This is not his final form.

A native of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and writer-in-residence at Lock Haven University, Jared has tried to cleave on multiple occasions. He even went to such extremes as to moped across these fine United States. This did not end well.

As luck should have it, his adventures crop up time and again in being one half of the singer-songwriter duo The Echo & Sway, and in his non-fiction, comics, and poetry.

He is the author of three chapbooks, most recently 2017’s “The Emperor’s New Poems: Poems New, Poems Used, Poems Slightly Abused” and is currently at work on a sequel of sorts to his first. This is not a joke.

As per his seven-year-itch, in relation to the newest wrinkle in his magnum opus, this post-apocalyptic fantasy is proving difficult to make amends during the current political climate.

“Last 4th of July” is the first installment of his “Traveling Tales of Waybackwhen.”

This is not the end.

Shedding his cells every seven years (as our species is so inclined) Jared A. Conti is but a shell of his former self. This is not his final form.

A native of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and writer-in-residence at Lock Haven University, Jared has tried to cleave on multiple occasions. He even went to such extremes as to moped across these fine United States. This did not end well.

As luck should have it, his adventures crop up time and again in being one half of the singer-songwriter duo The Echo & Sway, and in his non-fiction, comics, and poetry.

He is the author of three chapbooks, most recently 2017’s “The Emperor’s New Poems: Poems New, Poems Used, Poems Slightly Abused” and is currently at work on a sequel of sorts to his first. This is not a joke.

As per his seven-year-itch, in relation to the newest wrinkle in his magnum opus, this post-apocalyptic fantasy is proving difficult to make amends during the current political climate.

“Last 4th of July” is the first installment of his “Traveling Tales of Waybackwhen.”

This is not the end.

Sue Powers grew up outside of Pittsburgh in a family with deep roots in the musical landscape of Western Pennsylvania. Powers is a founding member of the group Devilish Merry, where she pioneered the use of the five-string banjo in Celtic music. The group has released three recordings featuring her playing, singing and song writing.

Wendy McVicker currently the poet laureate of Athens, Ohio, and has been writing and stirring up poetry wherever she can (often through the Ohio Arts Council's Arts Learning program) for a lot of years. Her chapbook, The Dancer's Notes, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Her most recent publications have been in the anthology The BOOM Project: Voices of a Generation (eds. Kimberly Garts Crum and Bonnie Omer Johnson) and in Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel.

Heather Moser grew up in the foothills of Appalachia. She is a classics professor, author, and researcher. Her areas of study include moral panics, particularly related to the Bacchic cult during the Roman Republic and the European Witch Craze of the 14th-17th centuries, the fluctuation of Julius Caesar's memory throughout history, the preservation and transmission of Appalachian folklore, and lore related to and evolving from cursed objects.

Diving into her Appalachian roots, Heather is an active member of the Writer's Conference of Northern Appalachia as well the literary journal Northern Appalachia Review. She has also served as a guest author and narrator for Steve Stockton's Thirteen Past Midnight podcast. An ongoing contributor to the Weird Writer blog for Into the Fray Radio podcast as well as The Caravan, Library of Lore her work covers folkloric elements from different time periods and cultures. Heather is also a researcher for the film production company Small Town Monsters, assisting with films such as MOMO: The Missouri Monster and upcoming The Mothman Legacy.

Brent House, a contributing editor for The Tusculum Review, is a native of Necaise, Mississippi, where he raised cattle and watermelons on his family’s farm. Slash Pine Press published his first collection, The Saw Year Prophecies, and his poems have appeared in journals such as Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, The Journal, Third Coast and Kenyon Review. He teaches creative writing at California University of Pennsylvania.