Laura Weiss wrote a humorous essay that has been published in The Best Teen Writing of 2009. (IJ photo/Frankie Frost)

An essay Weiss wrote while a junior at Redwood High School made her one of two writers in California - and 48 throughout the world - to earn a place in "The Best Teen Writing of 2009," an anthology published by Scholastic Inc.

Weiss, 19, earned three gold medals and one silver in the 2009 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a competition conducted annually by the children's book publisher since 1923. But it was her humorous essay - a satire on teens' and women's magazine articles called "A How-To Guide For Today's Teenage Girl" - chosen for a place in the anthology.

"I'm surprised they chose that one, but I'm excited," said Weiss, who just finished her first semester at Oberlin College. "I usually write fiction, and I usually don't write things that are funny."

The essay purports to offer teenage girls advice on achieving "womanly nirvana," which Weiss describes as a feeling similar to "frolicking in parks with other silken-haired maidens, to the tune of Natasha Bedingfield's 'Unwritten.'"

Under "The Perfect Career," for example, Weiss writes, "After graduating from college, if you live in New York City, you should marry a rich lawyer and move to the Upper East Side and breed upper-society children while volunteering at the National Charity League. If you live in Los Angeles, you should become a fashion designer and - later - a mother. If you're really ambitious,

Weiss said the essay, written for an Advanced Placement composition class, was meant as a response to the kind of "advice" available in the magazines she and her friends sometimes admit to reading.

"I think it's good to look at them, but not to take them entirely seriously," Weiss said. "For example, they have this thing about eternal youth. When you find your husband, you have to be 30. You have to get married at 30, have your kids at 30, and when those kids graduate from high school, you still have to be 30. Obviously, that's impossible, but that's what our celebrity culture equates to."

Weiss' essay was one of about 40,000 essays, stories, poems and articles submitted for the 2009 competition and evaluated by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, a nonprofit organization based in New York. After a round of regional judging, about 400 of those written works arrived on the desk of 19-year-old Virginia Lee Pfaehler, the recipient of a gold award for her writing portfolio in 2008.

"Virginia didn't want the work to follow typical teen fiction tropes, such as stories about someone's grandmother dying," said Matthew Boyd, national programs coordinator for the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. "As a poet herself, she wanted to see strong imagery, people willing to talk about their personal struggles, and things that showed a sense of humor, as well as more adventurous dramatic pieces. As a result, I think this was one of the better, if not the best anthologies we have done."

Anthology participants are eligible for scholarships and achievement awards in addition to the recognition they receive through the publication of their work, Boyd said. The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers is accepting applications for its 2010 awards, including the categories of video games, persuasive writing and creativity and citizenship. The deadline for the California region is Jan. 8.

Weiss, for her part, plans to continue revising a draft of her novel - a 200-page manuscript about a teenage boy in Texas living through his parents' divorce. She's thinking about majoring in English or creative writing at Oberlin, where she says her status as an author hasn't created much of a stir.

"I have a couple of copies (of the teen writing anthology), and I've told some of the people on my hall," Weiss said. "It's not really something I'm making a big deal out of."

Learn more

For information about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, visit www.artandwriting.org.

Contact Rob Rogers via e-mail at rrogers@marinij.com