[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.

Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.

Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project. YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.

Photo by Quinn Sunderland, 14, of Charlotte/YWP media library

The quiet potential for every action we take to dramatically affect our surroundings – the lives of the company we keep included – is a funny thing to think about, but sometimes a necessary one: We could all learn to be a little more conscientious. Cornwall poet Ella Kozak, featured this week, points out the reverberating impact a few casual criticisms can have on a person’s confidence.

Skipping stones

Ella Kozak, 13, Cornwall

One word, one stone.
Flat and smooth.
One lake, one life.
One stone
is flung at the water.
The ripples spread out like a fan.
Each ripple changes the water,
churning up the sand.
It hits once, twice, again and again.
Each time it is thought about.
That one moment
keeps on changing the lake, again and again.
“Why did you do that?”
“You’re going to be a lawyer, right?”
“Stop being lazy.”
“Just stop worrying.”
“You’re so weird.”
Each word, each sentence
is a stone.
Changing the lake.
Destroying the glass surface, their dreams.
One word, one stone.
One lake, one life.