The winners of “Bringing Tacoma’s History to Life,” a youth historical fiction competition, will be featured at a public reading as part of the City of Tacoma’s Historic Preservation Month, which takes place each May. The winners will read from their award-winning stories on Monday, May 21, at 7 p.m. at Black Kettle Bites and Brew (744 Market St.) as part of the monthly Creative Colloquy reading series.

“It’s exciting to see students engage with this historical material in such a creative way,” said Jackie Fender, founder and director of Creative Colloquy.

The City’s Historic Preservation Office launched this inaugural youth historical fiction competition, in partnership with local literary non-profits Write253 and Creative Colloquy. Competition winners responded to four prompts from a new resource guide about decisive but little-known moments in Tacoma’s history.

The panel of judges included local historians, writers and educators Jennifer Mortensen, Tamiko Nimura, Daniel Person, Renee Simms and Michael Sullivan.

To read the winning stories, which have also been published online, visit creativecolloquy.com. To access the resource guide, or to learn more, visit cityoftacoma.org/youthfictioncompetition or email landmarks@cityoftacoma.org, or call Lauren Hoogkamer at (253) 591-5254.

– City of Tacoma