Emily Gruessing, 11

“[In my future], I’m thinking about composing, maybe music production. I want to have more of a focus on songwriting, because I love writing, and I love English–but I [also] love music–so I love that that’s like a conjoined thing. It’s perfect for me. I am a Cappies critic, which involves a lot of English, and I’m also on the leadership team. Cappies is essentially like the Tony Awards for the high schools. You’re a reporter or a journalist, and you go to shows from other schools and write about them. Last year, at the school board meetings, I sent an article thingy that I wrote to the newspaper, and they published it, which was pretty cool. So, I was in the Loudoun Times for defending the arts. I [also] write poetry every day. It’s a personal thing that I really love. I love reading poetry. And obviously, that kind of goes with songwriting, so you can see how they intersect.”