DURANT, Iowa–Though Cadey Richman, a ninth grade student at Durant High School, may have only just started her writing career, she has already met with success. As an eighth grader, Richman won a Scholastic Art and Writing Gold Key Award for her self-published short story “Tomorrow Death Will Come to Stay.” A talented writer, Cadey has won a second Gold Key Award this year for a collection of short poetry “The Laments of the Souls.” Her poems will advance to the national level, giving her another opportunity to earn recognition for her hard work.
An avid reader and lover of music, particularly from bands such as Imagine Dragons, Maroon 5, and Queen, writing came naturally to Cadey. “I started writing down ideas that floated into my head through the day,” she explained. “When I hear music, the words often give me ideas.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, Cadey kept busy by taking an online writing class. Intrigued with dark fantasy, Cadey wanted to write a story of her own. When her talented and gifted teacher, Wendy Stolley, told her about the Scholastic Art and Writing Contest, she knew right away that she wanted to enter. She wrote “Tomorrow Death Will Come to Stay” about a family that moves to a haunted mansion and must deal with the dark forces that seem to emanate from the house. The story intrigued judges, and she won her first Gold Key Award.
Inspired, Cadey made two entries into the Scholastic Art and Writing Contest this school year, a science fiction short story and a collection of poems. Her poetry proved outstanding, and she won the Gold Key Award for the region through the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa.
In February, Cadey eagerly anticipated finding out if she had won. She shared: “I thought about it all day at school. When I came home, my mom told me I had won as soon as I came in the door.”
In honor of her win, Cadey received a gold key pin and certificate, and will also get to participate in a virtual recognition ceremony, which will broadcast on YouTube. Later this school year, she will find out how her poems do at the national level of competition.
While Cadey’s high school career has only just begun, she already has big dreams to continue writing in the future: “I want to go to the University of Iowa. They are famous for their Writer’s Workshop,” detailed Cadey. To help her start her career as a professional writer, Cadey plans to study not only writing but psychology as well to help her create more realistic characters.
