Senior Aline Dolinh has been to Carnegie Hall twice during high school for her writing so far, and is planning on heading down during June to the ceremony to receive her third gold medal from the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. In 2015, over 300,000 works of art and writing were submitted but only the top 2,000 works in the country earned National Medals and celebrated in a ceremony at Carnegie Hall. There are 29 different categories that teens can choose to apply to, such as art like fashion, film & animation, and sculpture or writing like dramatic script, humor, and poetry.

This year, Dolinh received a gold medal from her two pieces, Asterisk Dearest and Romance Disguised as Portent of Doom from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a program presented by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. The Scholastic Art and Writing Award Program exists to celebrate teens in grades 7 through 12 who exemplify originality, technical skill, and the emergence of a personal voice or vision in their work. Teens who stand out for exceptional artist and literary talent receive opportunities for recognition, exhibition, publication, and scholarships.

However, this is not Dolinh’s first year receiving a gold award from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Her freshman year she submitted poetry to the program, not expecting it to go anywhere. First she got a Gold Key for the region, and her work was entered into the National Judging. She was then awarded a National Gold Medal, and as a freshman went to Carnegie Hall to claim her award. Additionally, Dolinh’s sophomore year she was selected as one of five National Student Poets, and her poetry was published in American Visions and Voices 2014.

As part of the ceremony at Carnegie Hall, she gets to meet other teens from around the country and talk to them about their artistic and literary works. It is a great experience for her to be able to meet other like-minded people her age with the same interest in writing. Dolinh said, “I really like that aspect, being able to meet new people and keeping in touch with them”. National Medalists from all around the country come to Carnegie Hall for the awards ceremony, so Dolinh has met teens all the way from Alaska that are a part of this program.

Although Dolinh doesn’t write strictly about her personal experiences, they do inspire her as she creates her poetry. In addition, the world in general inspires her, as she tries to simply, “soak everything in”. Dolinh has tried other ways to express herself, but finds poetry the best way to do it. Currently, she is working on writing scripts, plays, and screenplays in effort to branch out.

As for the future, Dolinh isn’t quite sure if she’s going to major in Creative Writing in college. However, she definitely want to keep creative writing a part of her life. This only makes sense, because she states she’s probably been writing ever since she learned how to read, and just really likes doing it. When giving advice to others, she would say, “Just keep writing. I know that when I look back at some of my work, I kind of just go ‘Wow, this is really crappy’ but I’m glad that I just kept writing. There’s probably some value in it, and you’ll be glad you recorded something.”