Abstract – Mayhew Contest (Revised)

I have completely had a change of heart. Originally, I was content with the idea of using a past research paper – on Alcoholic Liver Cirrhosis – to fulfill the Conference paper requirement, after all it would be less work on my part.

However, after hearing about the Mayhew Contest, I decided that it would be much more fun to write a short story, and a nice change of scenery to the science research papers that I am used to. Also, creative writing was always my favorite thing to do in secondary school English classes. If my dream was not to become a doctor, then I probably would pursue being an author of children’s books. I may even get to do both someday.

I chose to write a young adult’s mystery, which I have titled: “The Lemon Drop Kids and the Mystery of the Black Hooded Shadow”. I have always loved to read fiction, especially as a child, and going to the library to check out multiple books at a time was a highlight for me. I even had this goal, as a child, to try and read all of the books in the children’s section at our small community library. I never made it, but I think I came pretty close.

Mysteries have always been one of my favorite genres to read, I used to read series such as “The Boxcar Children” and “Nancy Drew” and so thought it would be interesting, and challenging to write one of my own. However, I knew that having a maximum of six thousand words would be difficult to work with.