Over the month of September, Lilian Grace Valentine ‘25 posted 13 poems on the Dreamcatcher website, earning herself the title of Contributor of the Month for September. 

“I was kind of surprised [to be Contributor of the Month]. Honestly, it’s really great,” Valentine said.

Valentine first discovered her passion for writing poems in her seventh grade English class.

“I wrote 45 poems in one semester. And the teacher at one point was like, stop. Stop submitting poems for every assignment you can.”

She gets her inspiration from pictures she finds, chatting online, and from her English class.

“Sometimes I’m just chatting online and a random line comes to mind,” Valentine said. “I’m like, I should make that into a poem. Or somebody says something. And I’m like, yeah, that sounds pretty cool.”

Valentine wishes to publish a poem book filled with her poems. Her English teacher recommended publishing some of them onto the Dreamcatcher.

“I told them about potentially publishing a book. And they said, if you want to publish a book, you should publish some works to a place like the Dreamcatcher. So that way, publishers are more likely to publish your book.”

Valentine hopes to publish at least 55 poems on the Dreamcatcher by the end of her high school career.

She also predicts that the Dreamcatcher will continue to gain popularity and she hopes to “inspire more people to post.”

If you’re interested in becoming Contributor of the Month for October, submit your poetry, prose, longform essays, art, photography, fanfiction and fanart to westwooddreamcatcher.com. To be eligible for this title, submit your pieces and post comments on other contributors’ stories.