Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Now Open for Entries, 2025 National Student Poets Announced

With the start of a new school year, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers is excited to officially kick off the 103rd annual Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. 

Beginning today, the 2026 Scholastic Awards are now open for entries. Teen artists and writers from across the country are invited to enter their original works for recognition, scholarship/cash opportunities, and the chance to join the ranks of the program’s esteemed alumni. In 2025, nearly 110,000 teens from U.S. territories, Canada, and every state entered more than 310,000 works of art and writing for adjudication. 

Additionally, the Alliance announced today the latest class of National Student Poets, the nation’s highest honor for youth poets presenting original work. Representing five geographical regions of the nation, the 2025 National Student Poets are: 

• Demarion Martin, Northeast, Senior, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, New Castle, PA 
• Nadyne Sattar, Midwest, Senior, Mounds View Senior High School, Shoreview, MN 
• Rishi Janakiraman, Southeast, Junior, Stanford Online High School, Raleigh, NC 
• Sophie Da Silva, Southwest, Senior, St. Agnes Academy, Houston, TX 
• Cordelia Scoville, West, Senior, Harvard-Westlake School, Los Angeles, CA 

Throughout the year, the Poets will serve as literary ambassadors and will share their passion for poetry, literacy, and the literary arts with their communities and throughout their regions. This will be done through activities that include service projects, workshops, and public readings. In addition, each Poet will receive a $5,000 academic award. 

The National Student Poets were selected from students in grades 10–11 who received top honors in poetry. In 2025, more than 37,000 works of poetry were initially submitted to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. From this pool, 50 semi-finalists were identified as the most gifted young poets in their regions, based on their exceptional creativity, dedication to craft, and promise, and were invited to submit additional poetry and performance videos to distinguished jurors for the final selection of the five National Student Poets. 

For over a century, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, currently presented by the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, have advocated for and uplifted the interests, abilities, and experiences of countless creative teens, validating their artistic abilities and certifying that their voices truly do matter. Some of the program’s most notable alumni include Ken Burns, Derek Fordjour, José Parlá, Kay WalkingStick, Sylvia Plath, Andy Warhol, Charles White, Amanda Gorman, Tschabalala Self, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tracy Reese, all of whom received recognition through the program as teens. 

Participants ages 13 and up residing in the United States, U.S. territories and military bases, or Canada are invited to enter original work in any of the Awards’ 29 art and writing categories, including drawing, illustration, photography, flash fiction, poetry, film and animation, and journalism. All works are selected for Awards based on originality, skill, and the emergence of a personal voice or vision and without knowledge of the teen’s biographical or demographic information. 

Works are reviewed first on a regional level by approximately 100 local Affiliates of the Alliance, and those that receive Gold Keys are then adjudicated nationally by an impressive panel of industry experts. Entry fees are $10 for individual entries and $30 for portfolios. Fees can be waived for any potential participant for whom the fee is a barrier for entry. Fee waivers are made possible, in part, by BLICK Art Materials. 

Deadlines for entries vary by region. The National Medalists of the 2026 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards will be announced in March 2026, and throughout the spring the Alliance and local Affiliates will host a series of celebrations and exhibitions for teens, families, and educators. Recipients may have their work published in anthologies showcasing stories, essays, and poetry by teen authors, and highlighting paintings, photographs, drawings, and other works by teen artists. 

Hear Chris Wisniewski, Executive Director of the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, speak more about the program and its impact on students on this recent episode of the When Creatives Thrive podcast. 

To learn more about the 2026 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the National Student Poets Program, and to enter work in any of the program’s 29 categories, visit: artandwriting.org.