Here is the shortlist for 2020-2021 Essay Contest “My Covid Story.” Congratulations to everyone who could make it from among a thousand submissions.

We are thankful to all participants for sharing their stories many of which were heart-breaking while still enthused with hope. We pray that the world will be saved from this pandemic very soon and all loved ones are reunited again.

Winners will be announced very soon. Please follow our announcements!

• Khadija Qazi - 2020: The Best Year of my Life?
• Brittany Halbeib - A Letter to A World in Pain
• Princewill Udom – A Real Human with A Real Family
• Sandra Stevens – Better than Prozac
• Clare Blanchard – The Old-New Normal?                
• Namwano Shichende – Brewed in a Pandemic Pot-1
• Janette Fu – The Omen of the White Butterfly: Death and Regrets
• Kalpana Sinha – A Doctor’s Experience in Saudi Arabia
• Steve Staneart – Covid and Life Lost
• Melissa Hurley – Music, Masks, and Mayhem
• Lauren Barrett – A Walk to Repair
• Rainie Zenith – Ernie
• Edie Jones – Loneliness: Defeated and Conquered!
• Diane Parkes – The 91-Year-Old Man Who Is My Father
• Mariya Tytarenko – Homo Covidicus
• Anubhav Mahapatra – Life Is Hope, Hope Is Life
• Jannie Edwards – Meditation on Tenderness in a Time of Plague
• Leslie Freiberger – The Present
• Rita Marques dos Santos – A Room Full of Stars
• Aimee Christian – COVID Gave Me A Chance To Show My Parents I Loved Them
• Julia Marino – Cancer in the Time of COVID
• Jay Mark R Cordero – When Fantasy Slowly Turns into Reality
• Doreen Mason – Covid Sunrise
• Mike Brown – Empty Chairs
• Isabella Ayarza – Life Preserver
• Alex Lucky Nxumalo – Face to Face with a Deadly Enemy
• Lilith Kelly Lyons – Catalyst of Covid
• Ashleigh Mounser – Finger Lime
• Christopher Davis – Covid-19, Quarantine, and Me
• Sifon Ikpe – Out of the Darkness and into the Light
• Kriscel Carandang – Grief Is a Whole New Kind of Sadness
• Hadithi Da Storytellah – I Lost It All
• Kevin Pfundstein – It’s a Small Word
• Adrianne Vicciarelli – Change
• Ariadne Blayde – City of Death, City of Life
• Hamza Ali – The Second Ticket to Life
• Sofia Spencer – The Sacrificial Family for Submission
• Souzan Ali – Three Women on Balconies
• Rayla Noel - Touchables
• Berna Ismail - My Sedative Redemption
• Josh Chaffin – Prisondemic
• May Freitas – Symphony of Destruction
• Thandi Mpofu – But We Carried On
• Jade Keiner - Jenny Phillips – My Pandemic Pandemonium: From Feral to Faith
• Trang Nguyen – Out of the Boxes Back to Nature
• Brenda DeHaan – Pandemic Silver Linings
• Holly Johnston – Polio, Coronavirus, and Me
• Sharena Sigmon – The Nonlinearity of Loneliness and Isolation
• Calvin Henninger – Some Thoughts on Misery and Joy
• Sunara Fernando – Survival Mechanisms
• Fernando Andres – Tales from the Line
• Christina Stanton – From 9/11 to Covid: My Life in Bookends
• Nihar Pradhan – Covid-19 in Catch-22 - MY COVID STORY
• VarishaTariq – Egg and Potato
• Sharanga Senanayake – Covid-19, A Double Edged Sword or A Blessing In Disguise?
• Zahra Monib – The Art of Being Selfish
• Hannah Borababy – The Belly of the Beast
• Elizabeth Pappa – The Blue House
• Kayla Joan Baur – The COVID Paradigm
• Kiesa Kay – The Covid Queens
• Mercy Me – The Dung Pile That Was 2020
• Priscilla Owusu – The Waking Ups, the Ups and Downs
• Sabrin Shaher – Treasure a Moment of Life with No Fear
• David Prescott – The Fragility of Us All
• Arida Wright – The Magic in the Miracle
• Zoe Loprest – The Meaninglessness of Coronavirus and The Comfort Found Within It
• Lucy Reynolds - The Reveal of the Unknown Dilemma of My Ambiguous Life
• Brannon Johnson – Unpredictable
• Daphne Strasert – Waiting and Waiting and Waiting
• Sydney Majors – Where Did My Youth Go and When Am I Getting it Back
• Jordan Fash – Why COVID Gives Me Hope