Teenager’s Fiction Brings Her Real-Life Cash

By The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.

May 31–Annalise Nicholson was almost speechless when an editor of Seventeen magazine told her she won the periodical’s fiction-writing contest.

“I was kind of dumbfounded,” Anna-lise said. “I said, ‘Really?’ It kind of feels like a joke.”

This was no joke. “To Devotion,” a short story written by the 17-year-old junior at Decatur High School in Federal Way, was published in the June issue of Seventeen.

The magazine reaches more than 14 million readers a month.

Annalise won $1,000, most of which she’s saving for college.

She also won a tutorial on writing from a Barnard College professor who was the contest judge.

“To Devotion” is the story of a teenage girl who eventually forgives her boyfriend after he sleeps with another girl.

The issue, which hit newsstands in early May, included Annalise’s MySpace.com address, where she’s received several hundred messages — too many to answer — from girls who’ve read the story.

“Most of them say, ‘I saw your story. I thought it was really good,’” Annalise said.

And she’s heard from girlfriends at Decatur. Some have asked Annalise, who has a boyfriend, “Anna, is that true? Are you OK? Did that really happen?”

No, it didn’t happen to her, Annalise explains.

But she shares her friends’ excitement about winning the contest.

“It’s pretty thrilling,” Annalise said. “It’s kind of a strange feeling to think about how many people are reading my story.”

Annalise has written fiction since grade school. After college, she wants to work as a newspaper reporter and then as a magazine writer.

But her passion is for fiction, which shows in her Seventeen story.

“You can be creative,” Annalise said. “There’s a lot of room to do whatever you want.”

Steve Maynard, The News Tribune

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Copyright (c) 2006, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.

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