Wordsmiths of Berlin held their annual short story contest in December, submissions were due by Dec. 14.

Short stories were written in a number of different genres, with the first place being a science fiction story named ‘Failure Number 4,398,001’ by junior Regina Schimke.

“I’ve always liked science fiction stuff, so I have a lot of ideas floating around. For this one specifically, I found a story that I kind of started, an idea that I had already, and then I reworked it for the contest,” Schimke said.

Contestants were free to write any genre for their stories which were then judged by a panel of teachers.

“I enter a lot of art contests and writing contests so I’m kind of used to it, but I was a little nervous because it was people I know judging it,” Schimke said.

Submissions were a maximum of 2000 words in a google doc, and the contest was open to submissions till December 14th.

“I wrote it over break, and I pretty much wrote it all week straight so it took quite a long time,” Schimke said.

Writers used their own experiences as inspiration for story material.

 “[My story] kind of just came to me, and it was basically that we all are really depressed here and we are really sad, and it’s kind of a sick way to look at it, but compared to all the tragedies that happened in the past I wanted to find some optimism that way,” second place winner Anna Schumacher said.

The top four submissions were posted on The Red ‘n’ Green website and the BHS website.