As we draw near to the end of our 2022 program year, we want to say a big thank you to everyone who makes the Scholastic Awards possible. Thank you to all of our students, parents, educators, partners, jurors, staff; we’re beyond grateful for everyone in our Region-at-Large community!
This year was an amazing year for our remote programs; of the nearly 260,000 entries entered nationally, 20,000 entries were from the Remote Programs alone! Out of all the amazing works entered through our remote programs, 12% of all works submitted received an Honorable Mention, 9% of all works received a Silver Key, and 5% received a Gold Key. Also, every year, each of our programs has the honor of selecting five students as American Voices & Visions Nominees. These works are carefully selected as the most standout pieces in the region. Earlier this year, we had the honor of celebrating all of our students with a virtual Regional Ceremony, you can watch the replay here.
Regional recipients of the Gold Key award and the American Visions & Voices Nominees automatically advance to national judging and are considered for national awards, including Gold Medal, Silver Medal with Distinction, Silver Medal, and direct scholarship awards. Today we want to highlight several remote programs National Medalists and Scholarship winners. While we are unable to feature all of the remote programs award recipients in this post, you can access the full list of award-winning pieces by visiting medals.artandwriting.org.
On June 9th we had the opportunity to celebrate our National Medalists in person at Carnegie Hall. After two years of being apart, it was a delight to come together to honor our young artists and writers! You can watch a replay of the event here. Also, don’t forget to check out the National Exhibition to see more than 600 works from this year’s National Medalists!
Congratulations again to all our remote programs award recipients and to everyone who participated in the Scholastic Awards this year. And a special shout out to all of our remote programs National Medalists and scholarship winners . . . let’s give them a round of applause!
National Medalists
Lucy Pan, My Mother’s Dumplings, Drawing & Illustration. Grade 12, Lord Byng Secondary School, Vancouver, BC. Joohyun Pyune and Richard Moninski, Educators. Gold Medalist.
I am falling. A deep hole yawns upwards, eight feet wide and thirty feet deep. The compact dirt walls and green snake-like vines sprout tiny buds of the same unique flower resembling a white rose. I can feel the wind pressing hard against my face, leaving my eyes and cheeks stinging. The pain isn’t unbearable yet, but the fear is.
Lily Vaughn, Protectors of Balance, Novel Writing. Grade 7,
Cheldelin Middle School, Corvallis, OR. Melissa Cadotte, Educator. Gold Medalist.
Makayla Ballard, Collage Portrait, Mixed Media. Grade 11, Booker T Washington Magnet High School, Montgomery, AL. Chintia Kirana, Educator. Silver Medalist.
She walked up to the mirror and put her hands on the cold, blank, porcelain sink in front of it. This wasn’t the first time that Katie had lost it by herself before games, so now she knows what to do. She walked sluggishly back into the locker room and sat back down on the, now cold, bench. Katie simpers as she closes her hand around the pink basketball keychain on her bag. The pink is faded down to pale peach, and the black basketball lines are now light gray. The ball feels ice-cold in her hand, the metal chain shocks her and makes her eyes expand. “You’ve got this. Just breathe and shut out your mind.”
Kylie Petrides, Keep Your Head in The Game, Short Story. Grade 8, Cape Fear Academy, Wilmington, NC. Maureen Vanscoy, Educator. Silver Medalist.
Jennifer Zhao, Migraine, Expanded Projects. Grade 12, Syosset High School, Syosset, NY. Seungran Woo, Educator. American Visions Medal.
As I coax her out of the kitchen and to the living room, I’m compelled to tell her that I love her. I love you. I’m sorry. The words clump up in my throat, threatening to burst out with everything else I’ve strangled down my windpipe this morning. I resign to making breakfast. Hoping that she knows.
Sunny Vuong, Promise Her the Moon, Flash Fiction. Grade 11, Basis San Antonio Shavano, San Antonio, TX. Kim Kinne, Educator. American Voices Medal.
Scholarship Recipients
my mother was an artist.
Raquel Pihlstrom, My Mother’s Mural, Poetry. Grade 9, Lake Oswego High School, Lake Oswego, OR. Marcy Huss, Educator. New York Life Award.
she painted murals
of topaz koi ponds
on her bald head,
curled their fins
around her skull like
a chiffon headscarf,
painted over the cracks
until
everything
peeled
away.
Wesley Wang, Mute, Film & Animation. Grade 12, Jericho Senior High School, Jericho, NY. Matthew Silva, Educator. Best-in-Grade.
I count pennies and paystubs
instead of sheep to sleep —
Five hundred and forty-nine away from lemon bliss in plastic cup
At night, Grandma would look up at the moon’s retrograde motion
and slice a piece of the speckled sky for herself.
She would unspool the tender sinew from voluptuous stars
and pretend to sway the waves until her body ached.
You think of death, but you hate the type of people that surrender — the type of people that live in the adjacent room. You branded yourself as a persevering pioneer, someone with endless personal grit; you decide to live to prove something. Prove what?
These days, it is difficult to move:
a body where the bones are indebted
to an apology already choking around itself
is no body at all.
. . . you prepare by gripping the rustic metal railing and point your head downwards as if you’re doing a front wheel, and all of a sudden, you’re rolling and you plop on your legs at the foot of the staircase, where your parents are delicately waiting
In my collegiate endeavors, I will aim to further comprehend life’s spectrum of emotions, while weaving social and environmental justice into my creative writing to destigmatize a low-income upbringing and fight corporate climate change.
Taeyeon Han, Adversity Is My Name, Writing Portfolio. Grade 12, Arnold O Beckman High School, Irvine, CA. Darin Hallstrom, Educator. Silver Medal with Distinction Portfolio.
Dessa Ely, Impermanent Identity, Art Portfolio. Grade 12, Etobicoke School of the Arts, Toronto, Canada. Matthew Varey and Glenn Novak, Educators. Gold Medal Portfolio.
What’s Next?
Looking for more opportunities to be recognized? Student poets! Looking for an opportunity to get your poetry published? Blooming Moons, an online anthology of poetry by North American Muslim youths is now open for submissions! Find out how to submit and more below.
https://losangelesreview.submittable.com/submit
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are open for entries annually from September through December. See our upcoming events to stay up to date with our summer workshop series. We hope this summer will be a creative and productive one, we can’t wait to see what you create next!
Region-at-Large 