There are very few colleges in the US that meet full financial aid needs for foreign students, maybe a dozen at most, although there are a few more that will admit extraordinarily outstanding international students and award them a full ride, even though they are not need-blind for international students. Those that do will take one or two prodigies, maybe, from a country, and usually they’re in STEM fields. So effectively, you are in competition against all the other students in India from your year, from every field, every discipline.
Aside from having superb grades, and perfect or virtually perfect test scores (don’t forget to try a practice ACT, too, to see if you’re more suited to the ACT than the SAT - the English section of the ACT is supposedly easier for non-native speakers than is the SAT), you need something that really makes you stand out from the other students in India. It will be very competitive, but who knows? Maybe you are that good! You won’t know if you don’t try, and you do have almost a year to make your mark. For someone whose strength is creative writing, getting published and recognized, whether in India or outside of India, would definitely be helpful. The editor of a leading national newspaper there is willing to look at something of yours? That is fantastic. Are you interested in journalism? In investigative journalism? Could you come up with some investigative journalism topic that is relevant to young people in India, write a feature piece, and submit it to that leading national newspaper? If that were to get published, that is the sort of thing that could get you into a school here, especially one of the few liberal arts colleges that offer financial aid to international students.
Getting a piece of creative writing published and recognized, and having the schools see you as the next big creative writer to come out of India would be tougher, but that’s the sort of achievement that could possibly get you in with sufficient money. Every school in the US will have good creative writing classes - we’ve produced so many potential faculty members that the field is totally flooded, and any college has their pick of so many fantastic creative writing teachers.