MMA Senior Awarded Gold Key for Short Story

Merion Mercy Academy senior Maren Muller received the Gold Key Award for her submission in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The Philadelphia Writing Project, in partnership with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, recognized her work for its “outstanding merit in originality, skills, and the emergence of your personal voice and vision.”

In Maren’s short story As Usual, seventeen-year-old Ally Crow is haunted by dreams of a past life in which she was falsely accused of witchcraft and betrayed by someone she once loved. Living in present-day Salem, she begins to uncover connections between her dreams, an old silver wedding band, and her seemingly ordinary relationship with popular jock Tommy Cuthbert.

“I remember listening to my English teacher Ms. Sack explain the Awards in class and thought, ‘why not?’,” says Maren. “I bet you can imagine my shock after finding out my story had won a Gold Key award! I'm so grateful to Ms. Sack for giving me this opportunity and for my parents and friends encouraging me each step of the way.”

Since 1923, the Awards have recognized some of the nation’s most celebrated artists and writers while they were teenagers, including Stephen King, Amanda Gorman, Joyce Carol Oates, and Andy Warhol. Merion Mercy Academy is proud to count Maren among these esteemed Scholastic Awards alumni.

Gold Key works will be judged at the national level in New York City, and national medalists will be announced in late March 2025.