A schoolhouse fire in Cleveland shocked the nation in 1908 and then was largely forgotten to history—until now. This article, "What Did I Just See?," presents the story of how an ambitious and highly unusual scholarly project illuminated an American tragedy.
As a writer, the biggest challenge was telling two parallel stories: the story of a forgotten early 20th century fire and the story of unparalleled collaboration between a history scholar and a team of animators in crafting a new approach to pedagogy.
From the Judges
Judges agreed that this was one of the most beautifully written features, with compelling parallel stories and richly textured writing supported by fantastic supplemental material. The confidence of the author came through. Not every writer would be able to get away with throwing in flashes of a first-person narrative, but Matt Jennings brilliantly pulls it off. He knew that he could tell two stories at once: the story of a forgotten early 20th-century fire and the story of a unique collaboration for a scholarly project. There’s no mention of the project until the reader is three pages in, and it works!
