Our $2,500 High School Writing Scholarship Winner!
We love supporting aspiring writers
Hello, Protagonists,
We had over 800 (!!) applications for the Ryan Stripling “Words Create Worlds” Scholarship for Young Writers, our scholarship for high school seniors.
This scholarship is very personal to me and my husband, Tom. We give it in honor of his late brother, Ryan, an English teacher in Bentonville, Arkansas who passed away from cancer in 2019. Ryan was a fierce believer in young writers and always encouraged them with the motto, “Words create worlds.”
Now, I am thrilled to announce our 2026 scholarship winner…
Congratulations to Sabana Escalona!
Below is her winning essay, which you can also read on the official scholarship winner page HERE:
Sabana’s winning essay:
When I was younger, there wasn't much to do around me. Growing up in the Venezuelan dictatorship didn't give me much time to think beyond how dinner would be made or how much water we had left for the week. In such a small, repressed world, I only felt alive in the moments when my mother sat beside me to read me stories, stories where little girls like me grew up to be princesses, warriors, movie stars; in places where the least of their worries was being trapped between the wars and conflicts of adults. I thought it would be my only window to freedom.
But when I got older and words ceased to be the property of books and became my own tools of creation, opportunities that had seemed impossible opened up before me. I grew up telling my own stories, my own fantasies, putting on paper a future that years later would become a reality, dreaming of being the person I am today. I wrote about escaping my political and economic confinement. I wrote about studying at a good school. I wrote about finding love, traveling, working, eating without counting pennies, about having a little house in the mountains, about painting my nails a thousand colors, about seeing snow. I felt I could achieve anything; the sky was the limit.
Writing became a way to visualize, feel, and almost attain everything I wanted to experience in my life. I managed to leave Venezuela, I went to an excellent school that gave me the critical and creative mind I needed to spread my wings. I met people, I went to parties, I ate apple pie, I participated in competitions, I discovered playwriting and screenwriting. I had the opportunity to present my story at a theater festival where the ovations and support given by those closest to me made me understand that this is my path, that everything I have achieved and will achieve, everything began and will begin on a blank page, with a pencil or a keyboard, on paper or a screen. The sky is not a limit, it's a new challenge, a challenge that begins at university, somewhere where it snows.
And in the middle of my journey, I will take time to look back and see them, the girls of today, so many young women like me, wanting to escape their cages. Writing is the rescue I will use to teach them to look between the bars of fear and need, to give them the courage to break free. I want to be in a creative writing program, or at least in a club or workshop, so I can write stories that inspire them, that fill them with joy, sadness, rage, whatever works as a catalyst to help them achieve their dreams. That is my mission for this new chapter in my life.
Sabana will receive $2,500 to use toward college tuition!
Congratulations to the four other finalists, as well, and thank you to all the young, talented writers who sent in essays. Your words make the world a better place. 💛
Congrats to Sabana!
Congratulations, Sabana!