Literary Dinner
By Kat Willson ‘26, Editor-in-Chief; Edited by Safiya Ahmed ‘27, Resident Editor
Ridley’s annual literary dinner was held on the 9th of May to celebrate Ridley students’' accomplishments in the literary arts. Individuals were nominated by their English teachers, or were invited to attend if they were a part of a literary club (such as our very own Tiger Times!)
The evening began with an opening address from Mr. Lockey, the head of the English department. Mr. Lockey announced the prompt table groups were meant to spend their meal writing on; The Origin of Hank the Tiger. Dinner was lively with each table crafting a story (or more than one) about how Hank came to be Ridley’s mascot; these stories were then shared with the wider group during dessert, and everyone got a kick out of them! Following dinner and dessert, guest speaker Dr. Ellen Smoor Foster, former Ridley faculty and author, delivered an address and shared excerpts of her recently published autobiography, The Random Philosopher.
Congratulations to the following award winners:
- Iris O’Neil for winning the H. “Tony” Cassels Tuesday Night Club Trophy
- Clare Pawsey for winning the Dr. W.H. Merritt Memorial Prize for Public Speaking, Senior 1st
- Gioia Bonifacio-Proietto for winning The Honourable Mr. Justice A. Courtney Kingstone Memorial Prize for Public Speaking, Senior Second
- Alayah Osborne for winning the Ridley College Family Guild Public Speaking Junior First
- (Jerry) Yao Zhang for winning the Tony Kwok Award for Public Speaking (English as a Second Language)
- Our very own Rebecca Liu for winning The James Filby Memorial Prize for Humour for her TOK Interviews article in The Tiger Times
- Gioia for winning The "Take Notice" Prize for Best Opinion Piece for her article “Trump 2.0” in The Tiger Times
- Nantume and Caitlin Ng for winning The Colin G. Brzezicki Prize for Thought Provoking Writing for the “Humans of Ridley” project
- To our very own Quinn Martindale for winning The Terence Cronyn Prize for Best News Story for his various reportage in The Tiger Times
- Our very own Rawnie Sun for winning The "Tiger Post" Prize for Best Editorial for her “A Letter to the Tiger Times: Happy 1 year in Print” article in The Tiger Times
- To our very own Rebecca and Rawnie for winning The Matthew A. Davis '94 Memorial Prize - for the Editors of Tiger Times
- Yiming for winning the The Julian Street Memorial Prize for Prose (Creative Writing) for his Beethoven article in The Tiger Times
- Gioia for winning the The Virginia Vickers Essay Award for her HL Essay
- Charlotte Collins for winning The Gerald S. Shantz Prize for Poetry for her Poetry Anthology
- Carsyn for winning the The Richard B. Wright Prize for Fiction for her short story
- Clare for winning The Grade 12 English IO Prize
- Georgia Trites for winning the Special Achievement Prize for her work as The Tiger Times Cruciverbalist!
Once again, huge congratulations to all of the award winners and everyone else who attended the dinner!
