About Richard J. Margolis Career Highlights selected articles Selected New Leader Columns Reports & Monographs Op-Ed Pieces & Book Reviews   Past Winners 2017 Leslie Jill Patterson   2016 Denver David Robinson   2015 Daniel Hernandez   2014 Blaire Briody   2013 Patrick Arden   2012 Inara Verzemnieks   2011 Sabine Heinlein   2010 Doug Hunt   2009 Joe Wilkins   2008 Gabriel Thompson   2007 Stephanie Griest   2006 Marie myung-ok lee   2005 Kisha Lewellyn   2004 Nelson smith   2003 John Bowe   2002 Iyesatta Massaquoi   2001 Otis Haschemeyer   2000 Adrian Nicole LeBlanc   1999 Susan Parker   1998 Laura Distelheim   1997 Julie Lasky   1996 E.J. Graff   1995 Josip Novakovich   1994 Maggie Dubris   1993 Judith Levine   1992 Richard Manning

Currently in her final year at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (in 2002), Massaquoi won the award for her powerful stories about the impact of Sierra Leone's long-running and brutal civil war on its children. In that war, which was declared to have ended last January, an estimated 200,000 people lost their lives and another two million were displaced.

"I was raised in Sierra Leone," says Massaquoi, "and it is there that I came to appreciate the resilience of the human spirit. Sierra Leone is full of unheard voices, untold stories and unsung heroes whose everyday struggles speak to the depth of human perseverance."

After completing her medical school training, Massaquoi plans to continue integrating writing and medicine as a way to address human suffering and social injustice. In January 2003 she will return to Sierra Leone for more work on collection of fact-based stories about Sierra Leone's children. She will meet with child soldiers, child rebels, orphans, disabled children, internally displaced children, and refugees to gain a sense of the complexity of their experiences.