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Fairfax County Public Schools students earned 162 honors in the 2026 DC Metro Region Scholastic Writing Awards, including 24 Gold Keys that will advance automatically for consideration in the national competition.

Langley High School student Amenah Rashid received additional recognition as an American Voices Nominee for her speculative fiction piece, “On this beach rots the bile of the sea.” Rashid collected three Gold Keys overall, also winning for the flash fiction entry “SECRET GARDEN” and the personal essay “In the Cold.”

The county’s Gold Key recipients represented middle and high schools across Fairfax, with winning work spanning poetry, journalism, short stories, speculative fiction, flash fiction, and personal essays.

Grace Kim of Centreville High School earned three Gold Keys for the poems “Crossing Over,” “My Mother’s Recipe,” and “my unraveling sweater.” Kobimtochi Odo of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology won two poetry Gold Keys for “The Sound of Spring” and “reptile apocalypse (or in other words, please love me like this).”

The other Gold Key winners were:

  • Ishya Anbuselvan of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology for “Ask the Nice Lady” in poetry.
  • Martina Cantua of McLean High School for “The Autopsy of a Nation” in flash fiction.
  • Brandon Kim of Oakton High School for “Seeing Red” in short story.
  • Minchan Kim of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology for “The Star That Shines from Afar” in speculative fiction.
  • Nethra Kumaravel of Chantilly High School for “Detachment; Halfway Home” in poetry.
  • Michelle Lin of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology for “Held Constant” in poetry.
  • Haein Oum of Oakton High School for “What The Forest Was Fed” in poetry.
  • Isabella Richter of McLean High School for “Ode to Salt” in poetry.
  • Sophia Shi of Edison High School for “the weak and sick” in poetry.
  • Caroline Su of McLean High School for “Freedom Under Fire” in journalism.
  • Audrey Tan of Madison High School for “Flower Crown” in short story.
  • Talia Thitayan of Robinson Secondary School for “For Joan” in poetry.
  • Bhavya Uppalapati of Rachel Carson Middle School for “The Committee Under My Skin” in personal essay and memoir.
  • Elaina Wang of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology for “half-bellied moon” in poetry.
  • Run Xiong of Cooper Middle School for “December” in short story.
  • Elaine Zhang of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology for “Legacy on Ice: Skating Community Honors Lives Lost in D.C. Plane Crash” in journalism.

FCPS students also received 49 Silver Keys and 89 Honorable Mentions, bringing the district’s total to 162 awards.

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are presented by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. The program, described as the nation’s largest and longest-running recognition initiative of its kind, honors work in categories including critical essays, dramatic scripts, flash fiction, humor, journalism, novels, personal essays and memoirs, poetry, science fiction and fantasy, short stories, and writing portfolios.