The Razor’s Edge, by Madeleine Richey
Are you a writer, a painter, a sculptor—an artist in any form? As a young artist, it can be hard to be recognized for your work and even harder if you are homeschooled and do not have a school that regularly hosts awards and provides opportunities to display your artwork. But there is a way, and if you are recognized by these awards, there is far more acknowledgment to be had thanks to their prestige.
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are for teens who have not yet graduated from high school, and winning an award on the regional level is a high honor. Even higher is to have earned a national award. Submissions open in September, and run through December or early January. And the best part is that these awards recognize homeschooled teens.
With categories in architecture, ceramics, drawing, fashion, jewelry, photography, painting, sculpture, mixed media, and more for art, plus flash fiction, science fiction and fantasy, poetry, memoir, humor, and novels, among others in writing, these awards have a category for artists specializing in every kind of artwork.
Homeschoolers can be very well represented in these prestigious awards if only we will submit. I won an American Voices award on the national level in the 2013 awards, and in my region in one of the recent years a homeschooler won the national American Visions award. Please check out their website and submit your work: http://www.artandwriting.org.
Madeleine, 16, says: “I want to help people and I want to tell stories, especially the stories of people who don’t have a voice of their own.” Visit her blog at http://yourstorydieswithyou.blogspot.com