Each year, the Scholastic Art & Writing Award—“the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious recognition initiative for creative teens”—receives about 2,500 writing submissions from writers in the Massachusetts region. The very best submissions, roughly 5-7% of the works submitted, receive Gold Keys, and the best Gold Key winners receive an American Voices nomination. There are only five American Voices nominees for each region.
In this year’s competition, Walpole High School senior Archana Apte won a regional Gold Key award and a regional American Visions nomination for her poetry collection. In addition, she received a regional Honorable Mention award for her science fiction/fantasy short story.
“Archana is a skilled and thoughtful writer. She has tremendous talent. Whatever path she chooses in the future, I know writing will be part of her life,” said English department head Lauren Culliton.
Apte won this award by submitting four carefully written and edited poems, and she had to have an educator endorse her work. The process was not an easy one, as Apte said, “[E]ach initial drafting process took about 1 hour followed by about 4 hours of editing spaced over several months, for a very rough estimate of 20 hours for the full submission.”
Writing is second nature for Apte; she has been writing since she was six years old. Her stories tend to be about her own experiences and emotions, but she also writes poems from the point of view of fictional characters. She prefers freeform poetry because she can fine-tune the flow and rhythm of the words, but she also experiments with structured forms.
“My stories and poems are basically outlets for my perfectionistic tendencies, wild imagination and personal development,” said Apte.
This year, Apte also wrote and recorded original poetry that was played between dance numbers at the Dance Company show “Rabbit Hole.” Each poem was based off the respective dance number’s soundtrack.
“The poems were so beautiful, and they connected with the dances on a deeper, symbolic level,” said Dance Company Captain Molly Rockwood.
In the future, Apte plans on continuing with creative writing. If she accumulates a large enough body of work, she may even consider getting her works published. As for now, Apte plans on writing for a college newspaper. Her award-winning work, along with other Gold Key-winning submissions, can be found on display at the Education First building in Cambridge.
