Every year, twenty students in the United States become U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts, one of the country’s highest honors for students in the arts. Amy Wang (12), on May 10, became one of the 629 semifinalists for the U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts out of 4,500 candidates. 

Wang’s writing career began years ago, as soon as she could read. Wang grew up with stories. She loved the way she lived in multiple worlds at once, the way she could explore anything and everything she wanted to. She listened to NPR in the car, her mother’s fairytales before bedtime, and Louisa May Alcott audiobooks on her dad’s phone. With each story, she imagined a little more and dreamt a little further.

She channeled her curiosity into writing. In elementary school, Wang began by writing lists of what she would change in her life if she went back in time. Despite reaching the same conclusion each time, that she wouldn’t change anything, she enjoyed the reflections. She later progressed to crafting short stories featuring fairies and princesses. And at her dad’s request, Wang wrote two pieces per week. Whether it be a trip recap or short story, it didn’t matter. The choice was hers. 

“Every week, I would write and the pieces got longer and longer until it got to a point where my dad stopped asking me to write them and I was just writing on my own,” Wang said. “Sixth grade is when I really started taking charge of my own direction with writing.”

As she continued reading, her writing steadily improved. With her writing tutor’s encouragement, Wang started submitting to competitions. 

“My writing tutor would do fun writing enrichment activities, and sometimes, she would tell us that there’s a competition coming up,” Wang said. “It started as early as fifth grade, and around then, I got an honorable mention [in a competition], but the trophy was about as tall as I was. I was like ‘this is really cool. I want to keep doing this.’” 

Wang submitted to the Scholastic Art & Writing competition the first year she was eligible to, in seventh grade. She has continued to do so every year since. 

“At this point, submitting to competitions isn’t necessarily about if I’m a good writer,” Wang said. “I think I’m confident enough in my own writing ability that I don’t necessarily need the constant external validation that I used to, but I do really like it when other people resonate with my writing, because that means my work can take on a life of its own.”

Wang’s writing, although fiction, is often a reflection of moments she experienced and emotions she felt. 

“There are a few writers that I always return to [reading] whose voices are really distinct,” Wang said. “I think that element of voice is what determines the piece. It’s if you write in a specific way that isn’t led by the thought of it winning. Like, if I write a specific piece just for myself, then I submit it later, sometimes I’m surprised it wins at all. But those are usually my best pieces because I’m writing that for myself rather than a competition.”

Wang eventually learned to let go of what she thought she should write, shifting her focus towards writing what she wanted to. Although the writing competition season is largely in November and December, Wang’s process begins much earlier, generally in the beginning of the year. 

It starts in January with a spreadsheet. Wang said she links every idea she has to a different document, writing as much as necessary in order to allow her to remember the idea months later. Sometimes, she writes a sentence. Other times, she writes half the story. 

The bulk of her writing occurs in summer, during which Wang participates in writing camps and programs, such as the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. In September, Wang selectively chooses the pieces she sees the most potential in, refining and occasionally reworking them for the next few weeks. 

“Sometimes, my ideas come from pure imagination,” Wang said. “And sometimes it’s about the beauty of the [English] language and how you want to facilitate that. With poetry, sometimes one image is really compelling and I build with that image [as opposed to a concrete idea].”

Poetry was a relatively new form of writing to Wang, who had only started in quarantine. As someone who had been writing flash fiction for a decade, Wang wanted to see what she could convey through the free-form style of poetry; she wanted to experiment.

“Fiction is always, unless you are very fresh and new with it, sort of the same formula,” Wang said. “At least the way it looks is always the same way, paragraphs and paragraphs that make a story. With poetry, you can either restrict yourself a lot with form and have a rigid structure or you can also just have no restrictions at all. You can tell a story based off of a vibe. And I really liked that aspect of it. I wanted to grow as a writer.” 

One poem that won the Princeton Leonard L. Milberg ‘53 High School Poetry Prize was about a parent with Alzheimer’s. 

“I wrote that poem because my dad has always told me that I have to learn Chinese, because if I don’t, one day I won’t be able to talk to him anymore, because if he gets Alzheimer’s, he’ll forget how to speak English.,” Wang said. “I don’t think that would happen, but I just wrote that poem, and it was one that seemed to really resonate.”

Beginning her sophomore year, Wang has submitted her poetry pieces to the National YoungArts competition, one of the largest networks of young artists in the United States. YoungArts is also the sole nominating agency for the U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts..

Wang became a YoungArts finalist in November 2022, a pool of 138 students selected from over 7,000 applicants. Once YoungArts nominates 60 finalists as candidates for the U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts, the Commission on Presidential Scholars reviews applications. 

Now, Wang plans on pursuing a minor in creative writing at Stanford University in the fall and hopes to continue submitting to writing competitions at the undergraduate level. But despite the accolades and recognition she has received as a writer, for Wang, it’s the community she’s formed that will stay with her. 

“So many of my closest friends are other writers that I met online when we were doing the same summer camps and interacting with each other over Zoom,” Wang said. “It was just a really special community. With writers, the connections I’ve formed are so natural because we truly care about the same thing.”