By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

HALLOWELL – For the second year in a row, a Lewiston High School junior was chosen by Maine authors as one of three best young writers in Maine.

Cassandra Jensen’s short story was picked Wednesday as one of the best in a “Young Writer of the Year” contest judged by Richard Russo (“Empire Falls”), Linda Greenlaw (“Lobster Chronicles”) and Wesley McNair, an award-winning poet retired from the University of Maine at Farmington.

Other winners are Siobhan Anderson, who attends North Yarmouth Academy, and Emma Albright of Freeport High School.

The three young writers were announced during a ceremony at the Maple Hill Farm Inn & Conference Center. The judges, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, Maine Community College System President John Fitzsimmons, and Gov. John Baldacci attended.

Russo judged Jensen’s story “Nomenclature” as “beautifully written. It had a symmetry to it. The language was beautiful. There’s some truth that came shining out of these words, but it wasn’t overwritten, over dramatic. It was very sophisticated.”

McNair agreed, saying Jensen “has a wonderful satiric eye. The wonderful thing too is just how down underneath there’s an emotional bond between mother and daughter.” McNair added that the story had great wit and was “rich and complex emotionally.”

Jensen, 17, is the daughter of Hilmar and Phyllis Graber Jensen of Lewiston. The teen wrote about a mother who classifies her daughter’s friends by their names, even though she has never met them.

Jensen said she was excited and honored to be named a young writer of the year by Russo, Greenlaw and McNair. “I’m definitely going to read a lot of their work,” Jensen said.

Her story came from an idea she had “floating in my head. I didn’t base it on my mother,” she said.

When asked about her name, Jensen said Cassandra was a Greek prophet “who saw what other people didn’t see. I hope that symbolizes something about me.” She hopes to have a career that combines her love of writing and film.

Russo, McNair and Greenlaw offered praise for the three winners and five other statewide semi-finalists, which included two other Lewiston juniors, Lauren Landry and Lauren Rodrigue.

All of the writing was “so much better than anything I would have ever written at that age,” Russo said. Good writing is complex and difficult, he said.

When someone has talent, it’s important to tell them, Russo said. “This is the kind of thing that shapes young people’s lives. Virtually everything I’ve done in my life is the result of somebody telling me I was good at it,” or someone telling him he was not good at it, he said.

As Russo, Greenlaw and McNair worked independently to decide this year’s winners, each was assigned to pick one out of the eight they thought was the best. All three could not do that, Russo said. They all picked the same three as the best. Russo said he was glad they did not have to decide first-, second- and third-place winners. “That would have been excruciating.”

Isla Hansen, then a junior at Lewiston High School, was one of last year’s winning young writers. She and this year’s three semi-finalists from Lewiston were students of English teacher Richard Townsend.