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  • Margaret "Emi" Nietfeld, a soon-to-be-graduate senior at Interlochen Arts Academy, won a top writing prize in The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Special to the Record-Eagle

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May 21, 2010

Student's essays win $10,000 prize

She's one of only 15 in the nation

BY VANESSA MCCRAY vmccray@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — An Interlochen student won a prestigious writing award for her portfolio of three nonfiction essays.

Margaret "Emi" Nietfeld won a $10,000 prize and a portfolio gold award designation from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She is among only 15 high school students whose work received the contest's highest honor. Students submit various forms of art, writing and photography. The competition was started by Scholastic's founder 87 years ago, and now is administered by the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.

Past award recipients include a rich lineup of art and literary notables from Andy Warhol and Zac Posen to Sylvia Plath and Joyce Carol Oates.

Nietfeld of Minneapolis, Minn., is a senior and creative writing major at Interlochen Arts Academy. She graduates Saturday, May 29, and plans to attend Harvard University. Nietfeld will spend part of the summer in England excavating Roman ruins with Earthwatch Institute. The opportunity is through an Interlochen-specific program that encourages learning outside the classroom and is funded through the R.B. Annis Foundation.

At Harvard, Nietfeld will major in English or economics. She wants to continue to take writing classes and has already produced 100 to 150 draft pages of her memoir, which she will work on over the next several years. She hopes to publish it.

Her Scholastic winning pieces titled "Scrambled Eggs," "Shooting the Dead" and "Speedbird" detail intensely personal moments from her youth.

"For me, writing essays... in an abrupt and clear way really helps me to understand parts of my life that were previously a complete mess," Nietfeld said. "There's kind of a desire to kind of get it over ... to have it be clarified."

Her Interlochen nonfiction class is a "secure environment" to write and share personal essays. Nietfeld started journaling as a young teen but considered herself more of a visual artist. She won a writing award in the Scholastic contest in 10th grade. The following year, she entered a visual arts submission which also won an award.

She grew up in a religious household. The first secular book she read was "Harry Potter." The words enthralled her and created a vivid world.

At Interlochen, she learned to "write on command."

"I think it is easier to articulate my ideas clearly now and to identify what good writing is, but I feel like there's more at stake now," she said.

Nietfeld plans to attend a June ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York, where she will be honored for the Scholastic award.

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