Sophomore Ethan Brunke was announced as the winner of the Graphic Short Story Contest on Monday, May 24. His graphic story called ‘Nightmares’ won the contest. Junior Luis Sauceda-Reyes was announced as the runner-up.

“‘Nightmares’ is about a woman suffering from scary nightmares that plague her sleep,” Brunke said. ”My inspiration came from horror video games like ‘Little Nightmares’ and ‘Bendy And The Ink Machine’.”

Brunke and Saceda-Reyes’s submissions both contained original artwork.

“Some advice I would give is to know all that you want to say, draw and do before you start writing and drawing. Although you might change your mind in the middle of it, a rough draft will help. I also suggest getting your own personal drawing style down,” Brunke said.

The graphic short story contest is only one of the several contests that the Wordsmiths of Berlin hold.

“All the contests we had throughout the year were the Wordsmiths of Berlin and were all student generated. They are ideas that students came up with, including this one. Basically, the students had seen a niche for artists and storytellers that didn’t have a chance to showcase themselves and that’s the purpose of this contest,” Wordsmiths of Berlin Adviser Andrew Reise said.