Belmonte eighth-grader wins story contest

SAUGUS – A student from the Belmonte Middle School won this year?s Saugus.net Ghost Story Contest and was honored at the Saugus Library earlier this month.Eighth-grader Rachel May won first prize for her story, “The Chest.”?It?s about this girl who over vacation goes with her parents to the catacombs in France and while she was there she fell down this hallway and got a curse put on her,” said May. “It made it so she heard all these voices. It?s kind of like a riddle telling her how to get rid of the curse. I wanted it to be kind of like a journal and that gave me the inspiration for the character.”May said she had been thinking about the idea for the story for a long time before finally writing it.?I wrote the first page or two in school but I did most of the editing and the ending the night before the contest,” said May.English teacher Joy McCauley taught May when she was in sixth grade and said she held workshops after school for students to work on their stories.?I don?t take any credit for this,” said McCauley. “Rachel is just a fabulous writer.”Despite this, May still credited McCauley with helping her.?If it wasn?t for her I probably wouldn?t have even started it,” said May.May said she has always enjoyed writing since she was little and would often write on an old computer at her grandmother?s house.?She had this old computer that didn?t have the Internet so I would have nothing to do, so I would just write stories on there,” said May.May said she?s a fan of the Percy Jackson books and the Warrior series among the countless other novels she?s read.?I like series,” said May. “I read a lot. I have three or four book cases stacked up in my house. When I was young I definitely wanted to write a fiction series and I still want to do that now.”With her first competition under her belt, May said she?s hoping to enter more writing contests in the future.?I?m looking up writing competitions online for 2013,” said May. “I?m thinking about entering some of those and maybe getting into competitions with bigger prizes and more people.”Other winners of the competition include Doug Ducott, who won second place at the high school level for his story “Dreams Do Come True.” At the elementary school level, Veterans Elementary School student Katelyn Thoennes won third place for her story “Spook,” Julia Harrington, also from the Veterans School, won second place for her story “Whispers” and classmate Jake Hogan took first place for his story, “The Evil Spell Book.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].