12 Seniors Will Receive Top Honors and $10,000 Awards; Additional $3.25 Million in Art and Writing Scholarships Available to Selected Students

New York, NY (October 1, 2008) – The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing outstanding visual art and writing created by teenagers to a national audience, has launched their call for submissions for the 2009 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The Awards offer early recognition for creative teenagers and art and writing scholarship opportunities for graduating high school seniors.

Creative young writers and artists in grades 7-12 are invited to submit their best work in more than 25 categories, including animation, poetry, sculpture, fashion design, journalism, photography, novel writing, science fiction and many more. To learn more about regional submission deadlines and how to submit work, please visit www.registration.artandwriting.org

Each year, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers receives thousands of works of art and writing, submitted through regional affiliate programs across the nation. The submissions are evaluated locally and nationally by a panel of jurors comprised of renowned artists, authors, educators and arts professionals.

“In our 86th year, we expect to see the trend continue of more submissions and even more superior work,” said Virginia McEnerney, Executive Director at the Alliance.

Twelve high school seniors from around the country will be honored with the National Portfolio Gold Award, the highest level of achievement, and each will receive a $10,000 cash award. An additional $3.25 million in art and writing scholarships will be made available to Portfolio Gold and Portfolio Silver award recipients through The Awards.

Distinguished artists and writers who received an Art & Writing Award when they were in high school include Andy Warhol, Robert Redford, Sue Miller, Richard Avedon, Philip Pearlstein, Zac Posen, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Otterness, Robert Indiana, Sylvia Plath, John Lithgow, and Joyce Maynard. Since Scholastic founded the program in 1923, more than 13 million of America’s most talented teens have participated in the Awards, and 2.5 million have been recognized through exhibition and publication and have shared in more than $25 million in cash awards and college scholarships.

For more information, about The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, visit www.artandwriting.org.

Contact
Jennifer Boggs
Scholastic
(212) 343.6619
jboggs@scholastic.com.