Interlochen Arts Academy announces the winner of the 2025 Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition
Khadija Iskandar Khadjimedova, a junior from Sevierville, Tennessee, has been selected to receive a full-tuition scholarship to attend Interlochen Arts Academy as a creative writing major.
Khadija Iskandar Khadjimedova, a junior from Sevierville, Tennessee, has been named the winner of Interlochen Arts Academy’s 2025 Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition.
As the winner of the prestigious competition, Khadjimedova will receive a full-tuition scholarship to attend Interlochen Arts Academy as a student in the Creative Writing Division.
“Getting to study at Interlochen is a privilege that is inaccessible to many, and I feel so lucky and grateful for this opportunity,” Khadjimedova said. “I would not have gotten this far if it wasn’t for my mentors, Rayne Alarcio and Bella Rotker. It is certainly a dream come true to have won this scholarship because I want to be a serious writer more than anything in the world. Writing gives me a sense of purpose and direction, and I can’t imagine a world in which I don’t write. I’m excited to develop my voice as a writer and make new friends at Interlochen!”
"Khadija Khadjimedova’s writing stood out for its unflinching honesty, inventive diction, and emotional complexity beyond her years,” said Interlochen Director of Creative Writing Karyna McGlynn. “Across genres, she explores fraught family dynamics, spiritual uncertainty, and the cost of self-knowledge with fierce lyrical clarity and a striking command of image and tone. Her work is raw, luminous, and fearless—evidence of a young writer already in possession of a powerful voice and an urgent artistic vision."
More than 75 young writers in grades 8-11 from the United States and seven other countries entered the 2025 Virginia B. Ball competition. Applicants were asked to submit writing samples in at least two genres, including fiction, poetry, personal essay or memoir, screenwriting, playwriting, or hybrid genre. Khadjimedova was selected based on the overall strength of her portfolio.
First held in 2000, the Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition has enabled more than a dozen young writers of great promise to attend Interlochen Arts Academy. The competition is made possible by generous grants from the Edmund F. and Virginia B. Ball Foundation.
Previous recipients of the Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition Scholarship have gone on to earn degrees from Cornell, Yale, and Princeton and have won prestigious writing accolades including the Norman Mailer Award for Fiction, the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize, and Juxtaprose’s Short Fiction Contest. Works by past Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition winners have appeared in noted literary publications including Driftwood Press, Black Warrior Review, Kudzu House Quarterly, Broadly, and Entropy, among others.
Established in 1975, Interlochen Arts Academy’s acclaimed creative writing program provides expert instruction for high school writers in a supportive, nurturing environment. The Academy’s dedicated faculty of published authors provide individualized mentorship in a variety of career development topics, including building portfolios, submitting to contests, applying to colleges, and honing performance skills. Academy students enjoy regular reading and publishing opportunities and routinely excel in the nation’s finest competitions for young writers, including the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the YoungArts competition. Twenty Interlochen Arts Academy creative writing students have been selected as Presidential Scholars in the Arts.
Applications are still open for the 2025-26 school year, but space is limited. Learn more about Creative Writing at Interlochen Arts Academy and how to apply.
