More Than Just a Storybook Ending

Just as 18-year-old Kelly Marie Wilson [`05] started doubting herself as a writer, the Kirtland and Chagrin Falls resident received an unexpected confidence boost. Wilson recently found out she will receive the Gold Award for short-story writing from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Founded in 1981 as a nonprofit arts organization, the Miami-based NFAA identifies and assists emerging artists. Wilson, a freshman at St. John`s College in Santa Fe, N.M., is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Mich. Her winning short story is titled \"Driving in a Hail Storm on the First Night She`s Been Alone in Eleven Years, Wendy Recalls her Four Great Loves.\" \"The plot is essentially that -- in four sections arranged in reverse-chronological order, my narrator reflects back on her history with relationships and how each of them have shaped her,\" Wilson said. \"Technically, you could say I wrote it for a class. But writing really is what I love to do, and I would have written it regardless of whether or not I had been given an assignment.\" Wilson will receive $10,000 in prize money and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City in April to participate in an NFAA ceremony in the Baryshnikov Arts Center. \"My best friend from high school also received a silver award from the same contest,\" Wilson said. \"I consider getting to spend a weekend with her one of the best parts of the award.\" Wilson was informed that she was a finalist for the award while studying in Barcelona, Spain, just before entering college. \"It was a wonderful surprise because I was going through a lot of self-doubt about my identity as a writer at the time,\" Wilson said. \"Becoming a finalist gave me enough confidence in my abilities to rediscover the motivation that arts school demanded of me. \"Winning the Gold Award was simply unbelievable, and I can`t adequately divide all the emotions I felt when I found out.\" Wilson`s mother, Jane Wilson of Kirtland, is proud. By Jenny May News-Herald Wednesday, March 1, 2006