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June 25, 2018
Letter from the Director
Dear Affiliate Partners,

Thank you and congratulations! As we close the 2018 Program Year and prepare to launch the 2019 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, I want to recognize our partners who make this program possible.
National Ceremony
Earlier this month I had the privilege of celebrating students and educators--and our partners--from the grand stage of Carnegie Hall. I spoke not just of the history of the Scholastic Awards and the long line of successful Alumni who have proudly worn their Gold Keys, but of the bright and optimistic future we see in the next generation of great American artists and writers.

Over the years, the program has grown and changed as the lives of teenagers have grown and changed, but our fundamental principles remain the same. We are committed to youth voice and freedom of expression, and we believe that recognizing young artists and writers makes a real, tangible difference both in their lives and in our society. Please take a moment to watch and share the National Ceremony which is now available at  artandwriting.org/national-ceremony.
Affiliate Leadership Conference
We hope the 2019 Scholastic Awards will bring exciting growth and change to the program. This coming year we are excited to welcome new partners, and I want to recognize long-time Affiliates who are expanding their boundaries or creating new art or writing regions to reach more students, especially in under-served communities.

We are working hard to implement new features based on your comments and questions throughout the year. In August we will launch an Affiliate Survey to gather additional feedback.

At our Affiliate Leadership Conference, we were thrilled to welcome fifty Affiliates from regions across the United States for a day of sharing, learning, and planning. There we presented the Milwaukee Art Museum with the Gold Key for Excellence in the Field Award for their dedication to the Scholastic Awards in Wisconsin since 1976.

We also announced new program options that we are developing, including a way for students to upload Submission Forms digitally. We are also working to make paying for submissions more intuitive for students and educators. You can find the ALC PowerPoint presentations and handouts in the Affiliate Resource Site.
Art.Write.Now. Exhibitions
The National Exhibition at Pratt Institute's Pratt Manhattan Gallery and  Parsons School of Design  is just the beginning for National Medal art and writing.

Selected writings will be included in our annual anthology,
The Best Teen Writing. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Education, Art.Write.Now.DC, a selection of nationally awarded art, will be displayed in the capitol. There will also be a display highlighting Gold Key work from the Wisconsin Art Region.

A reception celebrating the publication of The Best Teen Writing and Art.Write.Now.DC will be held at the U.S. Department of Education on September 14, 2018.

Finally, our traveling exhibition, the Art.Write.Now.Tour, will bring this work to new viewers. We hope you will rally around this art and writing and see the exhibition as it moves across the country.

New Hampshire Institute of Art
Manchester, New Hampshire
September 7-October 20, 2018		 Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, California
November 8-December 16, 2018
Center of Creative Arts
Saint Louis, Missouri
January 12-March 17, 2019		 South Bend Art Museum
South Bend, Indiana
April 6-June 30, 2019
Preparing for 2019
We know there is much to prepare before the official program launch on September 12, including poster and supply orders and mailings, reaching out to schools, training new coordinators, and recruiting volunteers. Alliance staff are working hard to prepare a detailed Program Guide that will be available on August 3, and we will announce a new schedule of training sessions then. This year, in addition to scheduled live training sessions, we will be producing a series of short instructional videos on how to use various tools in the Online Registration System.

Once again, thank you for all that you do on behalf of students and educators, and on behalf of the Alliance. We are so grateful for your partnership.

Warm regards,






Virginia McEnerney
Executive Director