Dec 3, 2023 By Katherine Mansfield 6 min read

Like many young writers, Nikhita Thakuria, a high school junior at Upper St. Clair, has notebooks filled with stories, many of which have never been shared. Her nonprofit Quills and Keyboard removes submission fees and other barriers to publication and aims to provide a platform (and feedback) to teen writers and authors around the world.

What started as a required school project turned into an international writing contest that bridged Upper St. Clair students to teen writers across the globe.

Earlier this year, Nikhita Thakuria, then a sophomore at Upper St. Clair High School, created a website for the school’s mandatory International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, which encourages students to connect their studies and the real world.

“The very second that my school introduced the idea of what the MYP project was, I knew I had to do something with writing,” said Thakuria, who has penned short stories and chapter books since she was young, and last year received the Scholastic Writing and Arts Award Silver Key in flash fiction and short stories.

“My love for writing always stemmed from my love for reading. Instead of hanging out with my friends after school, I would go home and read a good book,” she laughed.

Nikhita Thakuria, a junior at Upper St. Clair High School, launched Quills and Keyboard as part of a school project. Now, after a contest earlier this year garnered 541 submissions from around the world, Quills and Keyboard is a nonprofit dedicated to providing a platform for and writing feedback to young writers.

Originally Thakuria, who belongs to the high school’s robotics and STEAM club, envisioned a website where her classmates could publish their writing. She even entertained daydreams of teen writers across America submitting their stories to Quills and Keyboard, and proudly adding that publication credit to their resumes.

It didn’t take long for Thakuria to get her Quills and Keyboard project up and running. To meet project requirements, Thakuria needed to spend additional hours working on the online publication. She brainstormed ways to make Quills and Keyboard bigger.

“What would actually be helpful to young authors?” Thakuria wondered. “One of the biggest things is, young writers want recognition for their talents, they want awards. Oftentimes, that’s how you can justify being an author. I had already dealt with how difficult it was to get published, but more specifically, how difficult it was to get feedback. I wanted to encourage people around me to be able to just display their talents and receive feedback from somebody who really understands them.”

That’s when Quills and Keyboard shifted from an online magazine of sorts to an international writing contest. The contest would be free, since submission fees are often a barrier to young and low-income writers’ voices being heard.

Thakuria worked with her math teacher Steve Miller to create a Google document for the contest, and got to work contacting magazines and nonprofits that cater to young writers.

“I emailed, like, every writing organization I could or every writer I knew would be interested in the contest. At first, I’m not gonna lie, people didn’t pay much attention to it. I really didn’t think that anything would come of it. I was very disappointed,” Thakuria said.

After a slow start (and a website revamp, courtesy a robotics club friend), people started noticing Quills and Keyboard.

Polyphon Lit, an online literary publication for high school writers and editors, shared Quills and Keyboard on its Discord channel. NewPages Young Writers Guide wrote an article about the contest, and “that’s when I started to gain some traction,” Thakuria said.

The international magazine Skipping Stones, which caters to writers and readers ages 8 through 16, agreed to co-sponsor the contest and publish the winning works in three categories. Under the Madness Magazine, too, offered to partner with Quills and Keyboard and publish the contest winners in three different categories.

Both Skipping Stones and Under the Madness considered all Quills and Keyboard submissions for publication.

“I wasn’t expecting any of them to publish our winners. That was something very shocking,” in a good way, Thakuria said.

Thakuria was interviewed by The Smile Project, and Reedsy, which offers writing and publication advice and resources, named Quills and Keyboard one of the best writing contests of 2023.

People from across the country, and then the globe, began submitting work to the small start-up contest in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

“I was getting upwards of 10, 20 submissions a day. I remember just being in class, refreshing the Google Forms app and seeing the number go up,” said Thakuria, who received a total of 541 submissions from around the world, including pieces from young Peruvian, Ukrainian, South Korean and South African writers.

Thakuria was impressed by the diversity of entrants and entries.

“The people who were submitting to my contest were just vulnerable. They wrote such touching stories. It was crazy how kind and sweet the people were and how powerful their writing was. There were some pieces, I would have to shut off my laptop and take a breather. There were certain pieces that actually made me cry a bit,” Thakuria said.

A panel of 30 judges comprised mostly of USC students and three adults, including author Chris DeSantis, selected the Gold, Silver, Bronze and Honorable Mentions in nine categories.

All participants received feedback on their pieces, and award winners received a certificate of recognition – and the chance to add that recognition to their resumes.

Quills and Keyboard grew into something bigger than Thakuria imagined. She recently filed for and received nonprofit status, so what began as a school assignment is a nonprofit devoted to providing young writers of all backgrounds the opportunity to share and receive feedback on their work.

“Writing is supposed to unlock these parts of you that you might not even see in yourself. It’s so valuable to have someone else look at your writing and tell you how to improve, and have more equal opportunities for teenagers around the globe,” Thakuria said.

Thakuria is brainstorming ways to keep the momentum going, including hosting smaller genre contests throughout the school year. Next year, she’ll host the second annual Quills and Keyboard contest, and is toying with the idea of printing winners’ work in a Quills and Keyboard magazine.

She’s hoping to receive even more submissions in 2024 and serve as a connection between all the lonely teens.

“As great as social media and the internet is, I feel like people aren’t as connected as they could be. There are so many echo chambers, there’s so much harsh criticism, especially for teenagers. It’s almost difficult to sort of have a platform where you can share what you want, especially when it comes to intimate things,” Thakuria said. “At its very essence, what (Quills and Keyboard) is supposed to be is a community of high school writers trying to encourage and support young writers around the globe. It’s supposed to be a mutually beneficial exchange.”

For more information on Quills and Keyboard, visit https://www.quillsandkeyboard.org/index.html.