Seventeen-year-old Serena Lin has won a silver medal for her poem “seasons.”
For 17-year-old writer Serena Lin, sometimes inspiration strikes in the most unlikely of ways. She said something as simple as overhearing a single piece of dialogue from a conversation between two people can trigger an idea that becomes an entire poem.
The junior at Moorestown Friends School has recently been recognized for her work, having won a silver medal at the national level of the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards and 10 regional awards through the 2018 Southern NJ Regional Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards competition.
For Lin, writing is something of a recent passion. Originally from Marlton, she moved to Moorestown with her family her freshman year, which was around the same time she started writing on a regular basis.
She said growing up, she had been made to write in a variety of classes, but it was around her freshman year of high school that writing transformed into a passion. She said she didn’t see a lot of Asian American representation in the surrounding community, and writing became a means of connecting with her identity.
Lin said she connected with other Asian Americans by reading their work online and by attending summer writing programs at the University of Virginia and the University of Iowa. Through these programs, Lin expanded her writing network and learned about the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards.
The poem “Seasons,” for which she earned her silver medal, was largely autobiographical in its theme, Lin said. She was in third grade when her brother was born, and she vividly remembers a family friend bringing over a tree and saying the tree was in honor of her brother. She said her poem’s roots came from that moment and became a piece about coming to terms with being an older sibling and the responsibility it entails.
“I think my writing has evolved to be more meaningful,” Lin said. “It’s more memoir — more taking ownership of my experiences and how I feel about things.”
She said she wasn’t expecting to win a national award for her work but was pleasantly surprised to learn she was receiving the honor. She said her work is largely private, and she usually only shares her work with friends she’s made through writing programs.
Despite her own privacy, Lin is passionate about getting other writers’ work out there. She said she and a friend have started their own free online literary magazine devoted to publishing underrepresented voices.
Lin said she enjoys a variety of writing from academic writing to news writing, but poetry is what comes most easily. She said her goal is to either pursue a career as a journalist or in law or public policy, but she doesn’t anticipate a time when she would give up writing poetry.
“Poetry is something that I think I’m always going to do,” Lin said. “It’s a creative outlet for me.”
To view Lin’s online magazine, Bitter Lemon, visit bittermelonmag.com.
