Dr. Arthenia Jackson Bates Millican wrote, “I have kissed the darkness hello. And as I move, I search through that darkness for the most brilliant light.” We asked writers to answer those words honestly. What came back to us was extraordinary. Entries arrived from Sumter County and beyond, from middle schoolers and high schoolers and adults, each one carrying something the writer had to be brave enough to look at directly.

Below are the winners of the “Searching the Darkness for the Light” Contest. Read their work. Then, if you’re able, read it again. These are stories worth sitting with. Because every story matters.