Since 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have recognized the vision, ingenuity, and talent of our nation’s youth, and provided opportunities for creative teens to be celebrated. Each year, increasing numbers of teens participate in the program, and become a part of our community–-young artists and writers, filmmakers and photographers, poets, and sculptors, along with countless educators who support and encourage the creative process.
Students across America submitted 300,000 original works during our 2015 program year across 28 different categories of art and writing.
The Awards are presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to identify students with exceptional artistic and literary talent and present their remarkable work to the world through the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Students receive opportunities for recognition, exhibition, publication, and scholarship.
Since its founding, the Awards have established an amazing track record for identifying the early promise of our nation’s most accomplished and prolific creative leaders. Alumni include artists Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Cy Twombly, Robert Indiana, Kay WalkingStick, and John Baldessari; writers Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Bernard Malamud, Myla Goldberg, and Joyce Carol Oates; photographer Richard Avedon (who won for poetry); actors Frances Farmer, Robert Redford, Alan Arkin, and John Lithgow; and filmmakers Stan Brakhage, Ken Burns, and Richard Linklater. Outside the arts, Awards alumni employ their creativity to become successful in any number of ways – leaders in fields including journalism, medicine, finance, government and public service, the law, science, design, and more.
Students’ submissions are blindly judged by leaders in the visual and literary arts. Many past award recipients have lent their expertise as jurors, including Michael Bierut, Phillip Pearlstein, Edward Sorel, Red Grooms and Gary Panter, and they have been joined by luminaries including Judy Blume, Billy Collins, Robert Frost, Paul Giamatti, Langston Hughes, Francine Prose, David Sedaris, Lesley Stahl, and Roz Chast. Jurors look for works that exemplify the Awards’ core values: originality, technical skill, and the emergence of personal voice or vision.
Today, we work with more than 100 affiliate partners across the country to bring the Awards to local communities. Teens in grades 7 through 12, from public, private, or home schools, can apply in 28 categories of art and writing for their chance to earn scholarships and have their works exhibited and published. Students also submit work for sponsored awards including Duck Tape®, Golden Paints and Gedenk – and for special honors like the National Student Poets Program, a joint project between the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.
Year after year the Scholastic Awards program grows with increased participation from students and increasing scholarships and recognition opportunities.
With 90 years of history behind us and a bright future ahead, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards has grown to be the nation’s longest-running, most prestigious recognition initiative for creative teens, and the largest source of scholarships for young artists and writers. Join us as a student, educator, affiliate, partner, or supporter and claim your place within our nation’s creative legacy.
http://www.artandwriting.org/the-awards/categories/#ScienceFiction