Ferocious wolf-dogs, friendship forged through basketball, an elderly widower’s solace in a tree, and the world experienced through a sentient park – these are the topics spun into exceptional stories by winners of the seventh annual Friends of Anderson Park Short Story Contest.
Renaissance Middle School swept the awards, with all the students being seventh- or eighth graders there. The winners are: William Young’s “Full Moon,” about a group of boys who survive a terrifying night in Anderson Park outwitting vicious canines; Jeffrey Kingston Kingsley Prince’s “A Friend in the Park,” which chronicles the bond formed by two basketball players in need of a friend; and Zain Kansagra’s “Mr. Zumac,” about a grieving widower who regains happiness by walking in the park and visiting a tree that he and his wife had admired. The Olmsted Oak Award goes to Coco Luraschi’s “More Than a Park,” a poetic portrait of a natural environment written from the perspective of the park itself.
Winners of the Friends of Anderson Park Short Story Contest are, from left: Jeffrey Kingston Kingsley Prince (7th grade), Zain Kansagra (7th grade), William Young (7th grade), and Coco Luraschi (8th grade).
Entries could be in any fiction genre, but Anderson Park had to be incorporated into the story in some way. The authors found innovative ways to do that.
Winners will each receive $100 from Friends of Anderson Park, and their stories will be read aloud during an awards ceremony at the Bellevue Avenue Branch of the Montclair Public Library on May 4 at 3 p.m. The public is invited to attend. The winning stories will be posted soon on the park
conservancy’s website.
More than 60 Montclair middle school students entered, and the judges are grateful for every submission. The stories reflected rich creativity and impressive writing skills, and it was difficult to select just a few outstanding ones. As one judge remarked: “I’m quite astounded by the sophistication of the writing. And the imaginations!”
The judges were Judy Newman, known in Montclair as the “book lady” on Halloween but known more officially as the Chief Impact Officer of Scholastic; Margot Sage-El, owner emeritus of the beloved independent Watchung Booksellers; Sharon Dennis Wyeth, author of numerous award-winning books for children and young adults including “Evette: The River and Me,” “Juneteenth: Our Day of Freedom” and “Something Beautiful,” a picture-book classic, and a visiting associate professor of children’s literature and illustration at Hollins University; and Ann Anderson Evans, whose most recent memoir is “The Sweet Pain of Being Alive” and who previously taught writing at Montclair State University.
Friends of Anderson Park formed 19 years ago, just over a century after the park opened in Upper Montclair. It is a non-profit conservancy dedicated to the thoughtful stewardship of Anderson Park’s natural, cultural, environmental and educational qualities. Its primary mission is to protect the spirit and integrity of the park’s nationally significant Olmsted design and to rehabilitate and maintain its pastoral ambiance.The conservancy’s short-story contest will come around again next year, and students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades who live in Montclair or attend school in town, including home-schooled students, are encouraged to keep an eye out for the announcement of the 2026 contest.