Shaliz Bazldjoo '24

By Sarah Hibshman Miller '98

Shaliz Bazldjoo '24 Writes Her Path to Success

Shaliz Bazldjoo ‘24 has seen her fair share of success throughout her years as a Laurel student. This year she and six of her classmates were named National Merit Semifinalists, awarded to students who show exceptional academic ability and potential for success in rigorous college studies. As a member of the Model United Nations (UN) team in Ninth through Eleventh Grade, Shaliz participated in a host of conferences. When asked what spurred her interest in Model UN, she said, “I’ve always been fascinated by world events and politics—perhaps because most of my family lives outside of the U.S.—so it was something I wanted to try from the very beginning.”

In addition to her extracurricular and academic successes, Shaliz learned early that she had both a gift and a passion for writing. In Eighth Grade she took home first place at a regional Power of the Pen writing competition and also received a state-level Humor Award for a piece she wrote during that tournament. That piece was published in “The Book of Winners” alongside other award-winning writing from that event.

As a Junior, Shaliz and five of her classmates competed in the Division II JustWrite Ohio writing competition where they took an impressive second place overall at the State Tournament in May 2023. JustWrite Ohio awards its highest honors to just two students in the state and Shaliz received the 2023 Excellence in Poetry Award. It is worth noting that classmate Karma Abboud ‘24 received the other highest honor—the 2023 Nikki Delamotte Award for Outstanding Narrative Writing.

Throughout Upper School, Shaliz also has entered her writing in the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards where she has received a total of three Gold Keys, three Silver Keys, and two Best-of-Category Awards.

But among her many accomplishments, being named a 2023 YoungArts Finalist was a highlight for Shaliz. YoungArts is a national program for young artists of different disciplines, be it writing, dance, music, visual arts and more. Every year hundreds of winners are selected among these categories from thousands of applicants. This includes a group of only 100 finalists who are chosen to attend an arts immersion week in Miami at the YoungArts headquarters. Shaliz submitted her Capstone Project to the competition on a whim—a novel focused on the history of LGBTQ+. She knew of the selectivity of YoungArts and did not expect to be selected.

The week in Miami for YoungArts was incredible; there were 20 of us there in the writing category, and I’m still in touch with the friends I made there, despite most of them being in college now. I did experience quite a bit of anxiety/ impostor syndrome reading my work on a stage in front of so many people, but I think I’ve become a better person on the other side of it. YoungArts is also really the thing that made me realize I want to study writing in college, and for that I couldn’t be more grateful.

Laurel’s Capstone Scholars Project provides enterprising and motivated students the opportunity to engage in personally meaningful work that tackles real-world challenges and creates real-world solutions. This applicant-only program is a two-year process where Capstone Scholars develop skills and outlooks that set them up for success in college and beyond. Projects focus on intensive research, collaboration, internships, and more.

Of her Capstone Project, Shaliz said that her “interest in this topic arose from current events taking place toward the end of my Sophomore year, and although the planning stage was long and mucky and full of scrapped ideas, inspiration struck me in early August of my Junior year, and suddenly I'd hammered out the first 30 pages.” She went on to say that, “Completing the rest of the novel was at times a breeze, at times a slog, and at times just a mess of plotholes, inaccuracies, and characters pushing each other off balconies—and I had to do a ton of historical research to even make it that far—but in the end this novel will always be dear to me and is certainly the most important project I have worked on in Upper School.” Shaliz is now working with a developmental editor to revise her manuscript and hopefully query for publication before graduation.

When asked what inspires her writing, Shaliz said that she has “often been inspired by historical events, figures and policies. There are just so many stories of people throughout time that aren’t really told, and I think they make for interesting and natural roots to branch new fiction off of.”

Shaliz is also editor-in-chief of a literary magazine called Polyphony Lit! After her English teacher, Ms. Caitlin Moury, encouraged her to sign up for the publication’s summer program, Shaliz joined the magazine permanently. She says, “It operates internationally and does amazing work, even beyond its main seasonal volumes of student fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In the past year, we’ve worked on an anti-war blog series with a Ukranian student group and developed creative writing lesson plans for school classrooms in Pakistan.”

After nearly 13 years at Laurel, Shaliz is getting ready to graduate in June. She plans to study creative writing in college and already has ideas for future projects to which she hopes to dedicate lots of her time. As for a favorite Laurel memory, Shaliz says, “This is a hard one because I’ve been here since Preschool. My mind immediately flits to midterms/ finals week last year, when my friends and I would find an empty classroom to watch TV shows between exams. But really, I can think of great memories from just last week in Physics class, all the way back to Third Grade reading. At Laurel, fond memories surround me!”