Young author receives writing award for personal story

A Deering High School senior who aspires to be an attorney as well as an accomplished writer is the winner of this year’s Founders Prize, awarded annually to the author of the best piece of writing to come out of a Telling Room young writers program in Portland.

Leaticia Hannah was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and moved as a teen to Angola, where she went to the French school. She dreams of being a lawyer and an author so she can speak for people who don’t have a voice.

Hannah’s piece, “The Samosa Story,” was written in the Young Writers & Leaders program and published in “No Time for Rehearsing.”

“What I love about ‘The Samosa Story’ is how it shows Leaticia’s ability to find a big story inside a small story and vice versa,” said Telling Room co-founder Sara Corbett. “This story tells us about a small comfort – a young person’s ability to give her family a small gift in the form of a platter of samosas on a holiday – while taking her readers through her own growth and hardships.”

Portland educator named a Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellow

A social studies teacher at Lyman Moore Middle School has been selected as a 2021-2022 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellow.

Kristin Leffler, a former journalist who now teaches eighth grade, is among just 26 educators who were chosen from more than 100 who applied for the program from around the country.

The Teacher Fellows will connect with a community of educators and journalists to explore reporting and journalism skills related to the fellowship’s theme: “Journalism and Justice: Elevating Underreported Stories in the Classroom.”

They will then create, implement and evaluate material that introduces their students to global issues in a local context, support students in developing media literacy skills and guide a practice of empathy.

Leffler is in her third year teaching social studies at Moore. Before becoming a teacher, she studied journalism at Ithaca College and worked as a documentarian. Her media work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Television Academy and the Alaska Press Club. Leffler is a member of her school’s Equity Team and serves on a district social studies curriculum committee.

Challenge accepted