Fettkether recognized in statewide essay contest

Alysa Fettkether finds writing a cathartic form of therapy, a way to document her surroundings and unleash her feelings while she navigates life as a high school student. But as of last week, it’s also helping her financially: the Dike-New Hartford junior-to-be will receive a $500 scholarship from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) City of Literature program in Iowa City.
           
Fettkether and her teacher, Lauren Petri, were ecstatic when they got the news about her essay reflecting on years of attending Iowa football games at Kinnick Stadium, which was entered in the “Glory of the Senses” category.
           
“It was pretty much just my memory in there, but then I just made the senses so (the reader) was there, kind of,” she said.
           
Petri, a UNI graduate who’s been at D-NH for the last two years, had Fettkether in a language arts class, and a unit on narrative writing led her to construct the piece that would eventually be deemed one of the best in all of Iowa. Petri herself has been involved in the Iowa Writing Project and has worked on both her reading and writing skills extensively since becoming a teacher, and her passion is starting to rub off.
           
“It’s affirming. It’s exciting,” Petri said. “It’s really exciting when I see students who are going into business or going into something totally unrelated to English, but they’re excelling.”
           
And of course, Iowa City, one of just two cities of literature in the United States (Seattle is the other), has long been known as a breeding ground for some of the best practitioners of the craft on the planet thanks to the University’s famous Iowa Writer’s Workshop—a program that boasts alumni and past faculty like Flannery O’Connor, Kurt Vonnegut and Raymond Carver, to name a few. 
 
Read the full story in this week's Grundy Register. Subscribe by calling (319) 824-6958 or clicking here.