Episode 8: Innovators & Creative Thinkers— Carving Your Own Path

Jurors look for creative works that exemplify the Awards’ core values: originality, skill, and the emergence of a personal voice or vision. It only makes sense that our young alumni would pursue their own business ideas and ventures! In this episode, we chat with Scholastic Awards alums who have navigated their own paths by starting their own organizations. We discuss the importance of connecting with other creatives and the roadmap to becoming an innovator, from concept and plan to a thriving organization and product. 

(2:10): Rosie Hong and Caroline Zhang are Scholastic Awards Gold Medalists and founders of Fleeting Daze, a literary magazine with a mission to provide young artists and writers everywhere a platform to amplify their voices, share their experiences, and exemplify the fleeting details of their lives that have shaped them to be who they are today. Learn more about Fleeting Daze here: https://www.fleetingdazemag.com/ and visit their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fleetingdazemag/. 

(35:18): Rowana Miller is the executive director of Cosmic Writers, a nonprofit that offers multiple pathways for children to experience creative writing programs. Rowana graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and has been awarded the 2023 Greater Philadelphia Social Innovation Award for Educational Entrepreneurship and the 2022 University of Pennsylvania President’s Engagement Prize. Her debut novel, Secrets of the Blue Hand Girls, is forthcoming from Sourcebooks in Fall 2025.

(1:02:32): Luke Hodges is a documentary producer based in New York City and a 2023 Alumni Microgrant recipient. Luke is the creator of the film "Crashing Out," a documentary short set at the height of the AIDS crisis.