2025 Nassau County Teen Poet Laureate Scholarship Award Winner
The Nassau County Poet Laureate Society awarded Katherine Galbraith-Chan a $500 scholarship and she was proclaimed the first Nassau County Teen Poet Laureate (NCTPL). Katherine is a junior at The Wheatley School. The awards were presented by Nassau County Poet Laureate Alan Semerdjian at the Farmingdale Public Library on May 18, 2025. Katherine will serve as the NCTPL for her senior year in high school.
The search for a student to fill the NCTPL position was conducted by Alan Sermerdjian and open to Nassau County High Schools. Among the applicants there were four students who were named finalists to the position. They are Kayla J. Duncan (Valley Stream Central H.S.), Rachel Ha (Herricks H.S.), Olivia Gu (Great Neck South H.S.), and Angela Vlavianos (New Hyde Park Memorial H.S.).
Katherine is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Vintage Literary Magazine [September 2024-present] which involved leading an editorial team in curating and publishing annual literary magazines, focusing on creative writing, poetry, art, and photography, managing submissions, overseeing the editorial process including copyediting, layout design, and final publication, and lead weekly club meetings to workshop poetry and prose.
Katherine was responsible for organizing readings at the Vintage Coffeehouse open-mic, a Vintage field trip to Sleepy Hollows, New York and reading her poetry at the Vintage Coffeehouse open-mic [2022, 2023, 2024] She was Regional Editor/Vice-President of Vintage [2023-2024] and Secretary of Vintage [2022-2023].
She is Co-Founder & Co-Editor-in-Chief of youth literary magazine [June 2024-present] The Wildflower Review.
She published a promotional piece for a high school play, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged] in a local newspaper, The Williston Post [November 16, 2024]
Katherine tutored refugees in English through a volunteer program in Indonesia.
Katherine describes her goals, “I hope to pursue a career in the editing and publishing industry so that I can not only nurture the voices of young writers, but also make my mark on the literary community. I am committed to helping others refine their writing, as well as working to grow my own skills as a poet and editor.”