The Townships Sun, a non-profit community magazine that serves the English-speaking community of the Eastern Townships, officially wrapped up its new Townships Young Voices project with an awards ceremony held on March 26. 

The Townships Young Voices project was about encouraging  youth between 12 and 29 years old to write poetry, fiction, non-fiction, or to take photographs, or create a piece of artwork to be published in The Townships Sun and to win awards. 

The project was a collaboration between The Townships Sun, the Write Here, Write Now! Program of the Bishop's University Lifelong Learning Academy, who organized workshops to give participants some tips on writing, art, and photography, and the Townshippers’ Association, who organized the awards ceremony and provided financial support. The Townshippers’ Research & Cultural Foundation and the Rotary Club of the Boundary in Stanstead also allocated financial support for the project. 

More than 100 people attended last weekend’s ceremony, either in-person or by Zoom, and a total of 18 awards were granted to participants. First prize winners received $100, second prize winners received $50 each, and third prize winners is publication only. All the winning works will be published in the Townships Sun over the next year, which is marking its 50th year of publication.  

“At first we didn’t really know how many people would apply and as usual people always apply at the very last minute. We ended up with almost 50 entries, which is very exciting,” said Marie Moliner, assistant editor for the Townships Sun and leader of the Townships Young Voices project. 

Moliner described the project as “a community labor of love.”

“This is really the work of a lot of volunteers. I didn’t add up the hours, but I am sure we have close to 2,000 hours of volunteer work overall to get us here. It really was a community labor of love and that was pretty obvious in the room where we had over 100 people show up, families and children, poets and authors, and playwrights in the Eastern Townships. It was wonderful,” she mentioned. 

Out of the five categories that participants could choose from, Moliner said that poetry was the most popular. The original age range was between 12 and 29 years old, but children as young as 11 were submitting pieces of work. 

“We didn’t know where people would land. I assumed that photography would be the one that would be the biggest because everyone has a phone and you can take a good picture with your camera. It was actually poetry that had the most submissions and the poetry submissions were just beautiful, poets as young as 11 right up to older poets,” highlighted Moliner. 

One of the chosen winners, 18 year-old Bishop’s University student Solomia Salameh, said that it was fun to participate in the project because participants had a range of categories to choose from. 

“I think that’s sort of what the genesis was, that you can pick any creative passion that you have and just go with it,” she said. 

Salameh originally thought she was going to submit a piece of poetry, but that quickly changed. 

“I decided to go with the poetry category since I write a lot and decided why not give it a shot? But the photography category was a spontaneous decision. It’s funny that that was the one I ended up winning somehow,” she mentioned.

Her photograph captured the moon reflecting off the water near a park in Lennoxville. 

“It was maybe a few months after living here in Sherbrooke for the first time, I did not live in Canada before that. I liked it because Canada has a lot of natural spots in the area that we take for granted a lot of the time. Essentially, what photography is all about is capturing the smallest moments that we tend to miss and to keep that with you in the form of a photograph,” noted Salameh. 

Salameh said that seeing younger children win awards at last weekend’s ceremony reminded her of her younger self. 

“It reminded me of myself when I was younger and just imagining your younger self with your immense creative potential. As children, we don’t know the limits to our realities so we really are most creative as children. To have that recognized, as a child, already puts a seed in their mind that they could do great things growing up,” she emphasized. “That’s why I messaged Marie afterwards to tell her that her work is invaluable in raising the next generation of artists, photographers, writers, because you’re encouraging them to do more than what they think they could have done.”

It’s important for adults too, added Salameh. 

“As young adults, we tend to get lost in work and studies, and a lot of the time we think that we should repress our creative potential and creative energy because we have too much on our plates already. (…) This project really pushed me to get back into writing poems and it forced me to get this submitted by the deadline. It puts that inspiration back into your heart, no matter if you’re a child or an adult,” she expressed. 

Listen to the full interview below: