Local Highlight: New York City Region

StevenPaul&Cor — Corianna Moffatt with NYC Region student Steven Paul in front of the 6-story, hand-painted mural of his 2014 Gold Medal photograph, *Lost Time*.

This is the NYC Region

Hello! My name is Corianna Moffatt and I am the coordinator for the 2015 NYC Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. This is my first year working on the Awards, and I couldn’t do it without the support of Scott Larner, Lisa Feder-Feitel, and all of the wonderful folk at the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. It takes a lot of invested people to run a program that reaches thousands of students, and this year we had generous help from Pratt Institute, St. Joseph’s College, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, to name a few. I would like to send out a special thank you to our fabulous partners The New School’s Parsons School of Design and Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts who have provided invaluable support and insight throughout the 2015 Awards season.

Charlie Reeder at St. Jospeh's — Charlie Reeder reading her original work at St. Joseph’s College.

Successes: Readings, Portfolio Review, Free Art Photo Shoot

In the fall of 2014, we were able to host a reading at St. Joseph’s College featuring Gold Key recipients from the 2014 Awards and an evening of one-on-one Portfolio Review sessions for seniors planning on submitting a Writing or Art Portfolio to the 2015 NYC Scholastic Awards. Three students who took part in these events were awarded Gold Keys for their Writing Portfolios!

We also hosted our first ever Best Light: Free Artwork Photo Shoot Event for Students with The New School’s Parsons School of Design. We had a great turnout and hope to expand this event next year so that more students can take part!

Hello, Social Media

As we have now entered 2015, it felt necessary to create a Facebook page and revamp the Blog to highlight student work. We use these media outlets to promote local teen programs, events, and opportunities and share student art and writing.

It is time to take full advantage of social media, so Instagram is on deck, and who knows maybe there will be a NYC Scholastic Awards Twitter account around the corner…

NYC Region 2015 Gold Key recipients attending the opening of the NYC Regional Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art where they were featured readers during the night’s events.

Dreams of the Future

We received over 11,000 submissions this year from students in the counties of Kings, Queens, Bronx, Manhattan, and Richmond. That’s an 18% increase from last year. Pretty good, but we can do better! Next year, I am hoping that we can increase our outreach to public NYC Schools with a focus on students in the Bronx and Staten Island.

I want to find more opportunities for events and workshops for our participants throughout the year, not just during the submissions and Awards seasons. How great would it be to create a collaborative summer mural, outdoor poetry readings, and Humor and Science Fiction/Fantasy workshops?