Interlochen Arts Academy announces the winner of the 2024 Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition
Seal Kirtley, a junior from Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, has been chosen to receive a full tuition scholarship to attend the Academy as a Creative Writing major.
2024 Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition winner Seal Kirtley.
Seal Kirtley, a junior from Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, has been selected as the winner of Interlochen Arts Academy’s 2024 Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition.
As the winner of the competition, Kirtley will receive a full-tuition scholarship to attend the Academy as a Creative Writing major. Kirtley has previously attended the Novel Writing Intensive at Interlochen Arts Camp, completed several of Interlochen Online’s four-week creative writing courses, and taken private creative writing lessons through Interlochen Online.
“Writing isn't just a dream or a passion, it's a fundamental part of who I am,” Kirtley said. “I love writing more than anything, and I'm so happy to have this opportunity to pursue it. I can't wait to go to Interlochen Arts Academy next year and be with other people who love writing as much as I do."
"We are so excited to welcome Seal to Interlochen,” said Brittany Cavallaro, Interim Director of Creative Writing at Interlochen. “Seal is a tremendous young writer; their prose has a wonderful sense of sound and rhythm, character and setting, and is such a pleasure to read. We can't wait to help Seal continue to refine their writing and meet their goals as a young artist."
More than 180 young writers in grades 8-11 from the United States and 11 other countries—including Japan, Ukraine, Egypt, and the Philippines—entered the 2024 Virginia B. Ball competition. All applicants submitted writing samples in at least two different genres, including poetry, fiction, screenwriting, personal essay or memoir, playwriting, or hybrid genre. Kirtley was selected based on the overall strength of their 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 supported by generous grants from the Edmund F. and Virginia B. Ball Foundation.
Previous recipients of the Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition Scholarship have studied at Cornell, Yale, and Princeton and have won renowned 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 such as Driftwood Press, Black Warrior Review, Kudzu House Quarterly, Broadly, and Entropy, among many others.
Founded in 1975, the Creative Writing program at Interlochen Arts Academy offers advanced instruction for high school writers in a supportive and encouraging community. Students work with an exceptional faculty of published authors, who provide individualized guidance in a variety of artistic and professional development topics, such as creating portfolios; submitting work to contests and publishers; applying to colleges; and developing performance skills. Academy students enjoy regular reading, publishing, and collaboration opportunities and routinely excel in the nation’s finest competitions for young writers, including the YoungArts competition and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Twenty Interlochen Arts Academy creative writing students have been named Presidential Scholars in the Arts—the nation’s highest honor for high school artists.
Applications are still open for the 2024-25 Arts Academy school year, but space is limited. Learn more about the Academy's creative writing program and start your application today.
