Lovely, Dark and Deep: Storytelling Contest Winners Offer Array of Talent

The 2024 Synapse Storytelling Contest submissions surpassed all expectations — from gorgeous landscape photography to heartrending personal essays, from campy gore to coming of age stories, this year’s offerings are outstanding. Our judges had the grueling task of choosing only three winning entries in each of our four categories. Visit our newsletter and website to read and view these 12 pieces of exceptional writing and photography in the coming weeks. And fear not, we will also bring you as many poems, essays, stories and photos as possible throughout the 2024-2025 academic year. 

But first, distinguished readers, here are your winners. 

Nonfiction 

First place: Meredith Klashman – Innocence Up in Smoke
Klashman’s Innocence Up in Smoke delivers a poignant narrative, masterful pacing and emotional depth. The piece skillfully intertwines the author’s experiences in the pediatric ICU and her reflections on the destruction in Gaza. The powerful juxtaposition of a PICU tragedy and a global humanitarian crisis evokes intense empathy and contemplation. The vivid descriptions, compelling imagery, and poignant repetition of “I just watched” create a haunting atmosphere that lingers long after the final sentence.

Second place: Jihae Ryu – The Mad Yet Sensible Artist: An inner dialogue (or I suppose, a monologue)
Ryu’s The Mad Yet Sensible Artist uses raw honesty and philosophical introspection delivered with flair. An inner monologue seamlessly explores the complexities of mental illness, creativity and the social stigmas surrounding them. The use of rhetorical questions and historical references, like Van Gogh and Munch, invites readers to rethink conventional notions of madness. Balancing humor with deep emotional reflection, the author paints a vivid picture of the challenges and nuances of living with mental illness, making the essay engaging and thought-provoking.

Third place: Gurbinder Singh – Brick by Brick: A First-Generation Medical Student's Journey
Gurbinder Singh’s Brick by Brick is a deeply personal portrayal of the complex challenges faced by a first-generation medical student. The writer powerfully conveys the tension between two worlds — family and academia — illustrating a deep sense of identity conflict and resilience. The candid reflection on guilt, disconnection, and personal growth is both compelling and relatable. The narrative stands out for its vulnerability, nuanced self-reflection, and vivid imagery of “laying each distinctive brick.” Its emotional depth, balanced with perseverance and wisdom, makes it a compelling and inspiring story of personal growth.

Photography

First place: Giselle Perez-Aguilar – Mother earth hurts, so do we
Giselle Perez-Aguilar’s Mother earth hurts, so do we is a visually and socially impactful piece. It powerfully captures the emotional intensity of Maestra Rocio Morales, a Zapotec healer, mourning the loss of Indigenous earth-based healing traditions and environmental destruction. The vivid imagery intertwines Indigenous wisdom, community, and climate crisis, urging global reflection on the shared pain of ecological imbalance. It reflects the urgency of addressing climate injustices and the global water crisis and offers a powerful narrative of cultural preservation and environmental stewardship, calling for collective action.

Second place: Jessica Crockett – Land’s End
Jessica Crockett’s Land’s End captures an ethereal moment of sunlight streaming through the Monterey Cypress trees, embodying a personal and familial legacy of seeing beauty in nature's fleeting moments. The emotional narrative behind the image, linked to the photographer's connection with their father and grandfather, enriches its impact. This combination of technical mastery and deep personal significance makes it deserving of recognition.

Third place: Kai Huang – Tunnels in Time
Kai Huang’s Tunnels in Time juxtaposes two powerful moments of personal growth, captured at the same spot seven years apart. It symbolizes resilience and transformation, with the changing weather reflecting the photographer’s emotional journey from uncertainty to clarity. The narrative of self-discovery, dedication to trans youth, and reflection on time imbues the image with deep meaning, making it a compelling and inspirational contest entry.

Fiction

First place: Maxine Collard – Trauma Junkie 
An excellent piece of dystopian realism, set in a familiar yet barely recognizable bleak landscape of San Francisco. I was plunged straight into the story by Collard’s precise and exhilarating storytelling. I also love how Collard manages to teeter right on the edge of the “uncanny valley,” blurring the line between our uncomfortable reality and probable future. I can’t wait to learn how the story unfolds!

Second place: Drew Despereaux - Death of the Author 
A theatrical delight with wit, absurdism, gore and camp woven into the text and inner monologues. Despereaux manages to interpolate a quote from Tom Stoppard’s play masterfully, while depicting a stage play gone wrong. Then begins a manic puppeteering effort so that the show goes on.

Third place: Simone Kurial - Awards Night 
Kurial’s Awards Night is thought-provoking, Kafkaesque with unsettling imageries that evoked inexplicable feelings. There is a sense that space and time does not function in the world Kurial has built, as the main character gets transported from place to place in a curious fashion, the space around her transmuting rapidly. Will they ever get to where they are supposed to go? We will never know. 

Poetry

First place: Sohini Halder - about women and war
In Halder’s poem, a quiet but forceful voice speaks of femininity, the earth, power, and the damage done on women in times of war. I very much loved the metaphors and word choices that unequivocally tied femininity to the earth, and the grounded tone speaking directly to the undefined perpetrator. 

Second place: Nick Fiorentino - tomato
Fiorentino’s Tomato is a charming and sweetly penned poem that manages to write about menial housework chores and cooking in the most jovial way. Reading the poem gave me a warm, fuzzy, feeling, like drinking a mug of hot chocolate. 

Third place: Jocelyn Fadiga - The Thing
Upon Fadiga’s comparison of love to an affliction one may not wish to recover from, I could not stop thinking about it. I enjoyed Fadiga’s interesting poetic structure and choice of unexpected words to form the various analogies to describe love.