Elora teen wins provincial short story writing contest

ELORA — Noah Barron placed first at the provincial level in this year’s Young Authors Awards.

The Elora resident entered in the short story category for grade 9 and 10 students.

Barron, 16, just completed grade 10 at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic High School in Guelph. 

The word count requirements for the short story were to be no more than 3,000 words, and to win this award is an “exceptional accomplishment,” according to the letter that accompanied Barron’s award.

Marion Reidel, Barron’s English teacher from the fall semester, says this contest, which is sponsored by the Ontario Catholic Teachers Association, is quite a big deal. 

In order to win it, Noah had to have the best story in his class, but also the best story in the school.

“Then he had to be the best one at Wellington Catholic. And then he had to be the best one in the region,” said Reidel.

Finally, he placed best in the province.

Reidel said she was only allowed to send in one story from her class, and the schools, cities and the entire board participating were only allowed to send in one story as well.

In the 9th grade, Barron submitted an essay to the same contest and won at the city level. This year, he wrote a fiction story, which Reidel stated was even more successful.

“He’s a brilliant kid. And he is particularly good with words,” she said.

The English teacher added that her past student enjoys words and has a great vocabulary for his age.

“He stands out in that regard compared to his peers,” she said.

Barron stated that he has been flipping through books for a long time. He specifically mentioned  reading Lord of the Rings and The Name of the Wind.

Barron added he did not fully begin writing his own stories until about the sixth or seventh grade.

When writing his essay for the same contest in grade nine, he said he was not writing for the contest, but rather for class. The essay was about a book he had read in school.

“I’ve written a decent amount in my spare time, but I’ve never done anything with that,” he said.

“This is the first time that anything that I’ve written has really been brought to anybody else’s attention.”

Last year he submitted his essay based on the recommendation of his teacher, and this year he decided to write something aimed at the contest in particular.

“All of that year gave me a chance to start writing a lot more. So, I guess when [the contest] came around [again], I was a little bit more confident,” stated Barron.

Reidel is now retired, but taught Barron for the last time in the fall 2022 semester.

“She asked me this time around, if instead of me writing an essay that she thought was good enough, that I start and make something completely for this contest and submit that instead. And so that’s what I ended up doing,” Barron explained.

While sitting at the lunch table with his friends, Barron said he received an email on his phone from Reidel. 

He said if she was emailing him the contest was either a great success or he did not place at all.

“I was definitely pretty happy to see the result. It was a surprise. But I also put in a lot of time for writing the story, and I felt that it [wasn’t] undeserved. But I wasn’t expecting it.”

As Barron will soon have to begin thinking about what he wants to do after high school, he said he would like to take his reading and writing skills to become an English teacher one day himself.

“I would have that day-to-day experience working with people who are also writing and working in English. So, writing I will pursue, but not necessarily as a career itself,” he explained.

“I would say the biggest thing is, I do have a lot to thank my teacher for,” Barron said.

“It takes a specific kind of person to really hype somebody up enough that they are interested in writing a story and putting all of that time in.”