Students in grades 7-12 in Mississippi public and independent schools, as well as home-schooled students, are eligible to enter the 2015 Scholastic Writing Awards, presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, through the Mississippi Regional program. Information on categories, rules, and how to submit entries may be found on-line at www.artandwriting.org. Entries must be received by 5 p.m. on December 17, and winners will be announced February 5, 2015.
The Mississippi Regional program is sponsored by the Eudora Welty Foundation and administered by the Eudora Welty House. It is offered statewide through a generous grant from the C Spire Foundation.
An independent panel of judges will review all entries. Winners at the Regional level will be eligible to compete for national awards and scholarships.
The Mississippi awards ceremony will take place April 19, 2015, at the Eudora Welty House and Garden from 2-5 p.m. Katy Simpson Smith, author of the novel The Story of Land and Sea (HarperCollins Publishers, 2014), will offer the keynote address. Smith is shown here at a book signing and reading at Lemuria Books in Jackson.
A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Smith attended Mount Holyoke College and received a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.F.A. from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She lives in New Orleans. She is also the author of We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835.
The Story of Land and Sea has received outstanding critical acclaim and was featured in the August issue of Vogue magazine.