@pentatonix123 I don’t want to name the specific competitions here since that might give away my identity and I want to stay anon on here, but feel free to PM me and I’ll send you a list of the contests I’ve entered and won in addition to ones I’ve lost.
To anyone who wouldn’t mind: could you share a piece of writing that won a regional award but not a national award please? It would really help this burning anxiety I’m already starting to feel about this whole thing
I’d really appreciate it to any who feel comfortable doing so… just a can view link on a google drive will do
*a piece of writing specifically
*a piece of writing, specifically
sure, poetry or prose? pm me
I’ll pm you my journalism that won a gold key but no national award - I feel like you don’t want to read my silver key winning novel
Tx all!
Seems like the stuff that gets awarded most has to do with personal identity (ethnicity specifically), teen love, parent-child relationships in which the parent is alcoholic/depressed/cheating, or cancer. At least, those appear to be the common themes in the online galleries for poetry I’m seeing. Flash fiction looks somewhat more diverse, but still mostly cultural identity, but with more stuff about dealing with death.
Looks like Scholastic has an aesthetic they like, which is fine. But work that strays too far from that (like mine and probably a lot of people’s here) don’t seem to win at the national level very often.
*this is an observation I’m making in general; out of the 15 poems per page, about 1 or 2 deviate from that
Oh well.
@Kingtape yeah I very much agree with you on that. It’s always been a theme of their’s.
is YoungArts similar, or do they judge stuff more holistically/objectively?
@Kingtape I wish! But, no not even close. If anything they’re a million times more subjective than Scholastic. :’D
Does anyone know the % of work that gets HMs/Silver/Gold keys?
Yeah, Scholastic definitely has a bias toward racial/cultural/social identity pieces. However, Scholastic also tends to have a lot more variety and diversity in terms of writing style – I’ve seen a lot of abstract, quirky pieces win. I haven’t applied to YoungArts yet (probably will next year), but from what I’ve heard, they’re super subjective and unpredictable when it comes to awards (i.e. my friend who won two national gold Scholastic medals and 1st place in another prestigious contest won absolutely nothing at YoungArts).
@Kingtape I think I read somewhere that 5-7% of works get regional gold keys, 10-15% get silver keys, and 20-30% get honorable mentions. It may vary from region to region though.
Is anyone else super nervous about results? I just… some days I feel like I might win gold keys, then the next I feel like my work is actually super bad and I’m just blind to it since I’m the one writing it. Does anyone else feel that way?
@beautifulchaos same! Except I only felt I had a 20-30% shot at gold on the first day, and it’s been nothing but downhill expectations from there, especially when I’ve seen more and more of the subjectivity in the judging.
My strongest work is magical realism flash fiction, and I haven’t seen a single flash fiction with magical realism win a gold key.
Should I have submitted it in the science fiction/fantasy section? Not sure…
I’m pretty sure magical realism isn’t fantasy, but Scholastic might consider it fantasy…
ugh. Now I’m worried about the piece getting DQ’d without thorough consideration due to miscategorization.
EDIT:
I just read an online gallery story whose story had a UNICORN in it featuring prominently and won flash fiction gold… apparently the categories aren’t as strict as I thought
@beautifulchaos your sentiments seem common to a number of people in past threads as well… probably just a human fight/flight reaction, diverging to one result or the other due to a lack of response (your getting the results back) from either. Of course, this is dumb; your thinking you failed or didn’t fail has no effect on the delivery of the result. But the brain is dumb sometimes. I’d guess is happening to a lot of people.
Or I could be completely wrong. I am talking out of my ass here.
Do your teachers think your stuff is good? Your peers?
Oh, to clarify: Not calling you dumb, just saying brains do weird things sometimes that are out of our control.
Also, I’m posting waaaay to much to this thread… I’ll calm down lol
@Kingtape my teacher has read one of my personal memoirs since I wrote it as a class assignment, and she said it was really good, but i don’t think it is lmao. I’ve never shown her anything else I’ve submitted; I don’t really feel comfortable sharing my work with others since it’s so personal to me, which is kind of dumb I guess since the judges are going to be reading it anyway. But I guess I just don’t feel comfortable having people who I personally know read it; if strangers are reading it, it’s not as bad. Idk if that makes sense.
@beautifulchaos yeah I feel that way too. It makes sense. A teacher/friend can judge you as a person to some extent based on your writing, whereas a judge who you’ll never meet judges the work and moves on. There’s no personal factor taken into account.
Anyone know the date they release results?