South Carolina teens share their stories and ideas about how to make their home state better.

How can we make South Carolina better? Normally this question is reserved for lawmakers and voters, but Writing South Carolina, volume 3, gives voice to 50 high school juniors and seniors from across the State who have offered suggestions. The University of South Carolina Honors College annual writing contest presents a necessary voice for them as well as a revealing portrait of their lives and desires using their own words and insights. Contest judge Mary Alice Monroe has said of the contributing students, “They are astonishingly talented, further ahead in the game than I was at their age.”

Through a variety of short, creative genres, students share their own gripping experiences in South Carolina, often about growing up and going to school here. This year’s selections range from poems about the cycle of abuse to short stories about minimum wage to essays about problematic sex education in public schools. Writing South Carolina, volume 3, offers a collection steeped in creativity, honesty, and clarity. High school students witness and encounter some of the most subtle and serious problems in South Carolina’s school system—and they demand change.

Monroe, a New York Times best-selling author of children’s books and novels, including A Lowcountry Christmas and The Butterfly’s Daughter, provides a foreword.

Foreword by: Mary Alice Monroe