SCRIBO accepts only original poems and short stories written in Latin. This is worth stating plainly, because it places the contest in a different category from every other competition in this record. The National Latin Exam, the NLVE, the CAMWS translation contest — each of these asks the student to demonstrate command of a language that already exists on the page. SCRIBO asks the student to make something new in it: to choose a subject, find the words, construct the sentences, and produce a piece of writing that Latin educators and scholars will judge on grammatical and syntactical precision, vocabulary selection, originality, and literary merit. It is, in the fullest sense, a test of whether the language has become a medium rather than merely a subject.
The competition draws from schools across the United States and Europe. Five Emerson Latin students placed. The results are set down below.
- Victoria Gyuyeon Park
- Jihan Lee
- Jaewon Yoon
- Yunyoung Yuriyel Keh
- Jio Kim
- Lena Damhee Kim
Victoria Gyuyeon Park has appeared in this record before in connection with SCRIBO: in 2022, her poem Ignis Perpetuus earned Summa Cum Laude — the highest distinction the contest awards. She returns in 2025 with a second-place finish. That a student placed at the top of a Latin creative writing contest in 2022 and returns in 2025 to place again is not a result that can be attributed to a single good day or a single well-turned phrase. It is a record of sustained engagement with the language as a living instrument, capable of sustaining original thought and literary form. The other four placing students — Jihan, Jaewon, Yuriyel, Jio, and Lena — bring the total to five, which is a cohort of Latin writers, not merely Latin students. We congratulate all five.