Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

The Belin-Blank Center is proud to serve as the Iowa and Midwest Region-at-Large Affiliate for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program. As Affiliate for these regions, we accept art and writing submissions, judge those submissions, hold an awards ceremony recognizing regional winners, and provide summer programming for talented young artists and writers.

About the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program is the nation’s longest-running, largest, most prestigious recognition program for creative teens. For the past 100 years, the Awards have recognized and encouraged artists and writers such as Sylvia Plath, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Robert Redford, Tom Otterness, and Zac Posen, among countless others.

After You Win

Students who earn Honorable Mention, Silver, or Gold Key Awards in either Art or Writing in the Iowa or Midwest Regions will be recognized at the Scholastic Celebration. The Celebration also recognizes the teachers who are listed on the submission forms of student pieces. In all, over 1000 students and almost 500 teachers are invited to attend the event, which will be March 1, 2025.

Gold Key works automatically advance to national judging. National Awards will be announced on March 26, 2025 at artandwriting.org.

Past Award Winners

How to Apply

Submit Your Work

Every year, we accept and judge submissions to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards from Iowa and the Midwest Region-at-Large.

To submit your work, you will first need to visit the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards website. There, you will find important dates and instructions for signing up to participate in the competition.

Winning an Award

Beginning in late January, the award winners will be announced online. All participants will be invited to the Belin-Blank Center Scholastic Celebration, honoring award winners!