Every year, Round Rock High School holds a creative arts contest where students are allowed to submit many forms of art to be judged. Students send in pieces of art such as poems, paintings or digital art that they created. The contest is sponsored by the school magazine, Whispers, which is student-edited and published every year and by English teacher Amy Cunningham.

Cunningham has run the contest for the last eight years that she has taught here. She took it over from another teacher because she wanted to help students express themselves through their art.

“It’s a chance for students to submit their work, and have it seen and evaluated, and possibly win a contest, which is good for academic resumes,” Cunningham said. 

The editors for Whispers are composed from members of Cunningham’s creative writing class. Tangentially, this year a new course of Literary Magazine has opened up that is primarily focused on designing this magazine, which has been published since the establishment of the school. 

“I learned so much from working on Whispers last year, and I feel like much of my growth as a writer came from reading and editing all of those pieces,” Whispers editor Ava Collins said. “It gave me a better appreciation for writing, and I got to see so many different styles and crafting techniques while looking through the potential pieces.”

The contest is held throughout the year, with submissions due by Nov.18. The winners are announced sometime in the spring. 

“We get hundreds of submissions, with students sending multiple pieces in,” Cunningham said. 

The editors of Whispers judge the art pieces and they decide amongst themselves which one is the best in different categories such as written works (poems and prose), and artwork,(digital and hand-painted). The best of each category gets published in the magazine and acknowledged by having their piece displayed in the halls.