On the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail’s Springtown Road Bridge!

City writers and country scribes, take note! Two worthwhile events beg for your attendance on Saturday, May 18. Bridging the Gap, organized by Scholastic Award Gold Key-winning poet Elijah Santner, is an interactive poetry event on a beautiful bridge just outside New Paltz, NY. At 3 PM, poets will gather to converse, write verse, and more—all to benefit the Hudson Valley Writing Project’s Young Writers Program! Nature Poetry Workshops will be led by Rich Parisio, NYS River of Words Coordinator, and at 5 there’s an open mic for all!

And at 5 PM in Brooklyn, One Teen Story, a literary magazine of young adult fiction, kicks off its teen short story contest! Julie Buntin, author of “Phenomenon,” a future issue of One Teen Story, will read an excerpt from her story. Local teen writers will also be reading from their work. One Teen Story editors will be giving away copies of “Night Swimming,” last year’s contest-winning story along with a handout of short story writing tips.

Scholastic Awards winners from the 1920s!

While this year’s Gold and Silver Medals (and Keys!) are still shiny, and the artists and writers who earned them float on cloud nine, we can be sure of one enduring fact: the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have delivered this kind of validation to creative teens for 90 amazing years! To celebrate this milestone, we dug into our vast archives and turned to esteemed colleague Bryan Doerries to tell the story that started in 1923 with just 7 submissions and is now the largest, most prestigious awards program in the U.S. Here’s a sneak peek at The Great Encouragement with Bryan as your guide!

Read More

We want to know! In celebration of the Scholastic Awards’ 90th anniversary year, we’re asking all of you to tell us why art and writing are important in your life. Give us your opinion here, and you could win a FREE copy of our 90th anniversary book, The Great Encouragement, which provides an in-depth look into the incredible 90-year history of the Awards and the students who have made it what it is today. You can also get a copy of The Great Encouragement by making a donation here to support the work of the Awards.

It’s hard for us to imagine a world without art and writing. They both bring out creativity like few other activities. In fact, Scholastic Awards founder Maurice R. Robinson once said that teens who produce art and writing are “acquiring something infinitely valuable – a feeling for beauty, which will color their entire lives, and the lives of those about them. There lies the great encouragement.” (Foreword to Saplings. Scholastic Publishing Company, 1928, and featured in The Great Encouragement).

We all have individual reasons for expressing ourselves creatively through art and writing, and that’s what makes each act of expression so special and unique. So tell us, why do you create or appreciate?

Enter to win a copy of The Great Encouragement now.

By Timarie Harrigan, Manager of Development & External Relations

This is a busy time of year for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, but a good busy. We’re getting ready to celebrate this year’s class of creative teens, our 90th Anniversary Year, and a bright and growing future for the Awards. (Did you know we hit a record number of 230,000 submissions this year?) This year is big, and we’re looking forward to doing it up in a big way at our 90th Anniversary Benefit on May 31.

Here are the basic deets:

90th Anniversary Benefit & Silent Auction
The Edison Ballroom
May 31, 2013

7:00pm – Cocktails & Silent Auction
8:00pm – Dinner & Program
9:30pm – After Party (yay!)

With so many influential, creative Scholastic Awards alums, our Silent Auction will be featuring alumni work exclusively. Read More

Caroline Brustowicz. Storm. Grade 12, Age 18. 2011 Silver Key, Painting.

Excerpted from Scholastic’s On Our Minds blog. Click here for the full post by Lia Zneimer.

It’s been six months since Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes, businesses, and schools, and leaving a devastating path of destruction in its wake. The damage was severe, but from the tragedy also came inspiring stories of courage and resilience. We all respond to tragedies like Sandy in different ways: some volunteer to deliver supplies to those in need; others pledge their time to disaster-relief organizations or donate money to organizations like the Red Cross. And some respond with art or writing that beautifully encapsulates the experience itself.

This year, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, received dozens of submissions that dealt with Sandy and its aftermath. One such piece was by 12-year-old Leigh Brooks from Brooklin, ME, who received a Gold Key for Poetry. As National Poetry Month draws to a close, we thought it’d be a perfect time to share Leigh’s poem:

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy
A behemoth of a storm
Travels her slow path across the Gulf of Mexico
Intent on the juicy prize: the New England coast

Cities lie far away in the distance,
She tires of water,
She hungers for the feast of buildings
The crunchy cold concrete, the white-washed walls Read More

The Black Cloth #2 by Brannon Dorsey (Photography)

Teen writers! The Adroit Journal, founded by multiple Scholastic Awards winner Peter LaBerge, has a great opportunity for you to have your work published! Learn about their 2013 Adroit Prizes in Fiction and Verse below from Peter himself. But act fast – the deadline to submit your writing is Wednesday, May 1!

Hi! My name is Peter LaBerge. When I am not writing, I am evaluating writing—for The Adroit Journal, the print charitable literary publication that I founded in November of my sophomore year. At its foundation, The Adroit Journal offers young writers from around the world the unique opportunity not only to submit work for publication alongside established writers, but also to participate in the evaluation process themselves, as part of the journal’s staff of 52 readers and editors. Read More