Grace Yang has won a Silver National Medal in the 2026 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for her work, How to Find Belief. A junior at Newton South HS and a former Fig City News intern, Yang was recently named co-Editor-in-Chief of the Newton South HS Lion’s Roar newspaper.
Sangeet Srikanth plays the role of Mona in the new Hollywood movie, Secrets of the Full Moon Seed, directed by Patrick Jerome. In a video interview, Srikanth says she enjoyed playing a mother of three kids in the movie, drawing on her 25 years as a mother. (The film was made in the summer of 2025, in her first year of being an empty-nester, and she found it to be “a beautiful journey.”) The film was shown at the Boston International Film Festival on April 10. (photo: Nova FilmImage)
Alison Leary will facilitate a virtual educational forum on April 29, 7PM-8:30PM about the current state of health care and the impact of health care costs on working families and municipal budgets. The forum, The Health Care Crisis: Medicare for ALL in MA is the Answer, will feature Congressman Jim McGovern. It is hosted by the 10th Middlesex Hub of Mass-Care and is co-sponsored by Our Revolution MA, Watertown Democratic Town Committee, Physicians for a National Health Policy, Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment, and Our Bodies, Ourselves. These groups are collaborating to promote the adoption of Medicare for All, a single payer system via Health Care Trust.
BJ Novak and Ellen Yang, both Newton South HS alums, are involved with the 2026 PEN America Literary Gala — a fundraiser for PEN America’s “cultural programs and advocacy to defend the freedom to read, write, and speak in a time when those rights face unprecedented threats.” Renowned actor and writer Novak (NSHS ’97) will host the gala on May 14 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Yang (NSHS ’21), founder of Punctuation PR, is co-chairing the Young Patrons Afterparty following the gala. Yang notes that the evening “is a crucial opportunity to uplift the literary world with not just words, but with action.”
