"The Best Teen Writing of 2007"
including "Tantamount" by Sindha Agha

SOPHOMORE SINDHA AGHA'S award-winning story "Tantamount" has been published in a new anthology featuring highlights from this year's Scholastic Writing Awards.

Agha is one of only 51 young authors featured in "The Best Teen Writing of 2007," published by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

"I think it's really important for high schoolers in the arts to gain recognition," Agha said. "It's incredibly encouraging and definitely helps young artists remember that what they are doing is important."

The 272-page paperback anthology includes award-winning work spanning a variety of genres, ranging from poetry and short stories to journalism and personal essays.

Justin Beltz, a sophomore at the University of Southern California, selected the items and edited the book. He won a Scholastic Gold Award in 2006 for his nonfiction portfolio. Billy Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate, wrote the anthology's forward.

Not every winner of a Scholastic Writing Award was included in the book. In fact, far from it: The approximately 60 published pieces were selected from more than 400 eligible works.

"This is a tremendous honor and the second time this has happened to a Uni student," said retired Uni Engish teacher Rosemary Laughlin. "Actually, it is the first time an entire piece was published. In 1997 Celeste LeCompte had a sample section of her essay on scuba diving in Cozumel published."

"Tantamount" won a Gold Award — Scholastic's top honor — in the science fiction/fantasy category last spring. The story is set during the time of the "Great Integration," when all physical differences between the races have been eliminated. This is how Agha's story begins:

Twenty young men and women, the very best of the best in science, sat around a long rectangular steel table. It was a cold looking room, with a single glass window to the outside, fogged by frost. Above them was the building’s rooftop, where neon letters spelled out: Pulcher Laboratories: Human Perfection Studies.

A clean man in an unwrinkled suit sat at the head of the table: the Director. His words started out terse and staccato, but toward the end they became loud and loose. He asked his colleagues why the newest generation, at the age of three years old, still couldn’t speak. Yes, they were only the fifth generation so far created since the Great Integration, but still...shouldn’t three-year-olds be
talking? His words were matter-of-fact, but his rising anger boiled over. He started to yell, a map of blue veins becoming prominent on his forehead.

“What’s wrong?” His jaw tightened. “We’ve created a stable community. We’ve created the perfect human: a blend of all races. The Grays replace the Caucasians, the Asians, the Africans, the Semites, and any other race that ever existed. Everyone is now Gray with ash-colored skin, gray eyes, and dull brown hair. Everyone feels equal. Everyone feels spectacular. But now what? Now the children can’t speak?” The scientists sat still, a deep ruby flushing their cheeks. Failure was a new feeling for them.

For the rest of Agha's story, all well as the complete anthology, click here.

"When I wrote the story I started in the middle with just a setting of children playing with blocks in a room," Agha said. "I liked a paragraph that I had written so much that I knew I had to turn it into a full story. Finally, after being inspired by having read 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley in Ms. [Adele] Suslick's freshman English class, I sort of turned to this theme regarding dystopia."

"Tantamount" was the second story for which Agha won a Gold Award. In 2006 Agha's "Remembering the Velveteen Rabbit" won in the short story category.

"The award ceremony that I attended my subbie year was a great experience for me," said Agha, who was unable to attend the 2007 ceremony. "I got to meet so many other young artists and mingle with them. I visited the studio of an artist, Stephen Spretnjak, and also had the opportunity to visit two journalists at The New York Times."