Write Yourself In

to the School of Your Choice!

Dozens of seniors each summer and fall write their college essays at Writopia. Almost all of our college essay students win admittance to their top choice schools. We are thrilled to report that In 2011 and 2012 alone, our college essay students have won admittance to: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Stanford, Williams, University of Chicago, Hampshire, UT Austin, University of Virginia, Suny Binghamton, and many more.

What We Do:

We help juniors and seniors identify unique and meaningful personal stories, and we give them the space and guidance to tell those stories in their own authentic voices. We will not write essays for students. Instead, we help students find their voices, give them the confidence to use them, and ultimately provide guidance on structure and editing. Each and every word is the student's own. At Writopia Lab, we witness the power of authentic young voices every day. Your child will not only leave the program with one to three college essays, but with a new confidence in his or her own writing.

Private Sessions

Sessions can be scheduled during the day, after school, and over the weekend. All private sessions are led by our published writers, produced playwrights, or experienced tutors. If you live too far from any of our Labs to come to us, Writopia teachers can work online via Skype or any other video conferencing tool. Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with questions and scheduling requests.

Workshops

Pricing

Please see the following pages for pricing and scholarship information:

• New York City
• Westchester
• Greater Washington, DC Area
• Learn about our scholarships and community partnerships.

Articles of Interest

• An Admissions Dean Offers Advice on Writing a College Essay
• Inside a Top College's Admissions Room

Who We Are

Rebecca founded Writopia Lab in April 2007, currently directs the national organization, and teaches writing workshops in NYC and at special events throughout the country. Rebecca has won multiple teaching awards including the 2008, 2009, and 2011 National Gold Apple Teacher Award for "submitting the most outstanding group of submissions on the national level" to the Scholastic Art & Writing event. She lectures at schools, events, and parents' organizations on a variety of topics including "How to Inspire the Writer Within Your Child," "Writing for High School and College Admittance," and on "Identifying and Participating in Positive Competitions."

Almost every single college essay student of Rebecca's has won admittance to his or her top choice school.

Danielle studied writing at Stanford University and New York University, and graduated from the Draper Program at NYU in January 2010. Beyond her success as a playwright, she has coached students on college essay writing and expository writing, and has helped students prepare for the SATs and ACTs since 2007. Her students have enjoyed tremendous success as well.

(914) 401-4159

Léna began teaching Writopia Lab workshops in Manhattan in 2009, then went on to develop the program in NYC's northern suburbs in 2010. That same year, her first Young Adult novel, Edges, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Léna earned her BA from Barnard, studying English and Italian literature, and her MA in Drama Therapy from NYU. Mentoring has long been the connective tissue in Léna's life, whether through her work with at-risk adolescents in Utah, California, and New York; or through her own writing discipline, as fostered by her late grandmother, author Madeleine L'Engle. It was her grandmother who taught Léna to transform the solitary nature of writing into a sacred sense of community, where her art and the art of others can flourish. You can visit Léna at www.lenaroybooks.com.

Jen Miller

Jennifer Miller is a fiction, memoir, and journalism instructor at Writopia Lab. She is the author of the forthcoming novel, The Year of the Gadfly (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012) and Inheriting the Holy Land: An American’s Search for Hope in the Middle East (Ballantine, 2005).  Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Marie Claire, Smithsonian.com, and The Columbia Journalism Review. Jen holds an MS in journalism and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia. She is a native of Washington, DC and lives in Brooklyn with all the other writers.

Anya Yurchyshyn began teaching teen workshops at Writopia in the fall of 2009. She is finishing her MFA in fiction at Columbia University, where she is also a teaching fellow. In addition to working with undergraduates, she’s spent two years teaching fiction, poetry, and dramatic writing to advanced high school students through Columbia University’s Summer Program.  She’s written non-fiction and book reviews for Esquire, Budget Travel, Modart, and Ploughshares, among many other publications.  Her fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Noon, Guernica, The Adirondack Review, On the Bus, and Elimae.

Courtney Sheinmel teaches summer and year-round fiction and memoir workshops at Writopia Lab. She grew up in California and New York, graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College, and Fordham University School of Law. After working as a litigator for several years, Courtney decided to focus on her true love: writing. Her critically-acclaimed debut “tween” novel, My So-Called Family, was published by Simon & Schuster in October, 2008.  Her second book, Positively, came out in September 2009.  She is also the author of Sincerely Sophie/Sincerely Katie (June 2010) and You Can’t Even Measure It (2011). You can visit Courtney online at www.courtneysheinmel.com.

Kathy Crutcher

Kathy Crutcher joined Writopia Lab in March 2009. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona in both fiction and creative nonfiction, and has taught composition and creative writing at the University of Kentucky, the University of Arizona, and through the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth program. Kathy has also read for various literary publications, including The Atlantic, The Sonora Review, and Limestone, and will serve on the national panel of judges for the 2009 Parent Teacher Association Reflections Literature Contest. Her writing has earned her an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, fellowships to writing programs in Prague and Kenya, as well as accolades from contests such as the Glimmer Train Fiction Open and The New Millennium Writing Awards. Kathy is thrilled to be part of Writopia and looks forward to many good reads in DC!

Amin Ahmad

Amin joined Writopia in the winter of 2011. He grew up in India and was educated at Vassar College and MIT.