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Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Scholarship Competition

Virginia B. Ball Scholarship Competition

Submissions for the Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Scholarship Competition for the 2025-26 school year are now open. 

Learn more about the competition below.

Students who submit their portfolio are considered for a chance to win a full-tuition scholarship to study Creative Writing at Interlochen Arts Academy. Previous recipients of the Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition Scholarship have gone on to earn degrees from Cornell, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Michigan. They have won or been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Norman Mailer Award for Fiction, the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize, Juxtaprose's Short Fiction Contest, Wigleaf's Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions, and the Pushcart Prize. They have published books and have been featured in a variety of publications including Driftwood Press, Black Warrior Review, Kudzu House Quarterly, Broadly, Entropy, and more. Twenty creative writing students at Interlochen have been named Presidential Scholars in the Arts, one of the most prestigious awards for high school graduates.

Submissions will be accepted until Nov. 15, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Read Submission Guidelines