D.C. Regional Manager
Program Manager

Operations and Scholastic Awards Affiliate Manager

Peter Quinn-Jacobs started at Writopia Lab as a Dungeon Master in 2020 and is excited to work full time at the Washington, D.C. office starting in 2022. He has run role-playing games since he was seven years old and enjoys games both in-person and over the internet in a variety of fantasy and science fiction settings. In his free time, he designs his own board games and murder mystery parties. His science fiction has earned an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future competition (2008) and his scholarly work won the William Hamilton Prize at William & Mary Law School (2018) and was a finalist in the American Indian Law Review Competition (2018). He's excited to work with Writopia to spur the imaginations of writers and players through fantasy gaming!

Registration and Outreach Coordinator
Instructor

Christina McDowell is thrilled to be joining Writopia Lab in Washington DC as a writing instructor. She is the author of the critically acclaimed books After Perfect: A Daughter’s Memoir and The Cave Dwellers: A Novel, both published by Gallery Books/Scout Press at Simon & Schuster. In 2018, After Perfect was optioned by Valparaiso Pictures and is currently being adapted for the screen. Christina’s work has appeared in The Washington Post; the Los Angeles Times; The Guardian; O, The Oprah Magazine, LA Weekly, Marie Claire, USA Today, and The Village Voice, among other publications. Christina is also an advocate for children impacted by prison. She taught creative writing to teenage girls at Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles with InsideOUT Writers and served on the advisory board of POPS The Club, the first high school club in the U.S. that uses the written word to transform, heal, and empower youth harmed by mass incarceration. She was awarded for her outstanding advocacy work in 2018. To read more about her work, you can find her at christinamcdowell.com. Christina is currently at work on a new novel and when she is not spending her days writing and rewriting, she loves spending time with her little Havanese, Zelda Fitzgerald.

Instructor

Allie Hoback joined Writopia Lab as an instructor in December 2024. Allie is a poet and essayist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia. She earned her BA in English from Virginia Commonwealth University, and her MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University. Allie has served as editorial staff for several literary journals, including Quarterly West, Salt Hill Journal, and Blackbird. Her work has appeared in New Ohio Review, HAD (Hobart After Dark), The Boiler, and elsewhere. An AmeriCorps Colorado alumni, she has previously worked in a garden center, as a sandwich slinger, in university writing centers, and as an adjunct college professor. She lives in Washington, DC

Instructor

Kellie Watkins is a writer and co-owner of Jahphut, a small publishing company. She is the author of If These Shoes Could Talk: The Awakening and Savvy Diva’s Take On…44 Days of Random Thoughts & Observations, under her pen name, Jahzara the Savvy Diva.

Kellie possesses her MFA in Creative Writing from Full Sail University and a BA in Journalism/Mass Media and Communications from the University of the District of Columbia. If Kellie isn’t sleeping or devouring her favorite cupcakes, she’s writing and pitching screenplay ideas, sharing random thoughts and observations through her blog and social media platforms, teaching creative writing workshops, or empowering the youth through community engagement. Kellie is also a ghost writer and provides book consulting services to aspiring writers who are stalled in their journeys. In between inhaling and exhaling, she pauses to appreciate her family of humans, lions, and wolves.

Instructor

Jordan K. Casomar is delighted to be joining Writopia Lab as an instructor! Jordan is a prose writer with essays in The Kenyon Review, Catapult, and elsewhere. He received a MacDowell Fellowship in 2021, was the nonfiction runner-up in The Pinch’s 2018 Spring Literary Awards, and is an alum of the VONA conference for writers of color. Jordan has an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Minnesota. His first novel—a dramedy about high schoolers, toxic masculinity, and the so-called friendzone—is forthcoming. Jordan loves teaching writing workshops and running D&D games. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and their two cats, Tuleg Rasputin III and Little Girl.

Instructor

Liz Lawson is thrilled to be joining Writopia's DC lab as an instructor! She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Agathas, The Night In Question: An Agathas Mystery (with Kathleen Glasgow) and The Lucky Ones.

Her books have been featured by the Today show, People, Buzzfeed, Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, and more, and published in nine countries. The Night in Question is a Today Show 2023 Read with Jenna Jr. pick. The Agathas was the Barnes & Noble YA Book Club pick of May 2022, the Target/Epic Reads Book Club pick of May/June 2022, and named a best book of 2022 by Waterstones. The Lucky Ones was named a "Best Book of 2020" by both Kirkus Reviews and the Chicago Public Library.

She lives in the DC metro area with her family and two very bratty cats.

Instructor

Aiden Kaplan is excited to get to work with Writopia Lab as a Game Leader! Aiden has been playing and running tabletop role-playing games for the past twelve years. He has worked extensively with kids of all ages running games, teaching creative writing, and all sorts of other activities at YMCA Camp Takodah in Richmond, NH. He also volunteers to run games remotely with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Libraries in Charlotte, NC, his hometown. He is a student at American University studying journalism and cinema, and is ecstatic to work with the next generation of great writers and game masters at Writopia.

Instructor

Dana is beyond excited to join Writopia Lab! She graduated from Brown University, where she studied English and wrote a thesis about vampires, gender, and the entertainment industry. Dana writes creative nonfiction, comedy, and poetry, and she dabbles in fiction when she’s feeling adventurous. She’s drawn to offbeat topics related to the supernatural, history, gender, and the environment. Dana has a background in performing improv comedy and has been published in several comedy journals. Outside of writing, Dana likes to draw, run, and swim in cold bodies of water. She loves working with all of the clever, zany, and thoughtful writers in her workshops—it’s delightful!

Game Leader

Leah Ly is just delighted to be starting a new adventure with Writopia Lab as a Game Leader. After graduating from Rowan University with a BA in Radio/Television/Film with a Creative Writing concentration, she has spent a decade professionally entrenched in nerdy and creative spaces. For the past few years, tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) have been her happy place. She is truly the embodiment of the theatre kid to TTRPG enthusiast pipeline. Her passion for character crafting, worldbuilding, and collaborative storytelling combined with her deep commitment to performance has been the cornerstone of her approach to every game. 

Between campaigns, Leah wrote and performed her first original theatrical piece in spring 2023 and has been appearing in independent theatre in the DC metro area ever since. She is so excited to be engaging young people in the power of tabletop gaming with Writopia Lab, where she can create magical moments (and also play all the bad guys). 

Instructor

Lydia is so thrilled to be joining Writopia Lab as an instructor! She's long been part of the Writopia family; she first started attending workshops during middle school, and volunteered with Writopia throughout high school. She loves Writopia's friendly and supportive community and fun writing games—her favorite has always been Hot Laptop!

She's a recent graduate of Stanford University, where she earned her B.A. in American Studies with Honors in the Arts. She was also awarded the Maclin Bocock/Albert Guerard Fiction Prize and completed a Levinthal Tutorial in Fiction under Stegner Fellow Emma Binder. Her poetry has previously been recognized by the Gregory Djanikian Scholars in Poetry, National YoungArts Foundation, Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, National Student Poets Program, and Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, among others, and published in The Adroit Journal, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. During her free time, she loves line dancing, drawing, and looking at bonsai trees.

Instructor

Bailey is delighted to join the Washington, DC Writopia Lab team as an Instructor! She is the author of the poetry collection published by Cathexis Northwest Press, 2025, and her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Poet Lore, Nimrod International Journal, The Main Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Little Patuxent Review, The Northern Virginia Review, and minor literature[s], among others. Originally from Ocean City, New Jersey, Bailey received her B.A. in Creative Writing and English from The George Washington University and her MFA in Creative Writing from American University. She is currently a graduate student at Wesley Theological Seminary, pursuing an M.A. in Theology. Both her academic and creative work are interested in the intersection of trauma studies and theopoetics. When Bailey isn’t writing, she is indulging in her love of video games, non-fiction, and swimming.

Instructor

Arielle Heiman is thrilled to be joining Writopia Lab! Arielle is a writer and filmmaker from New York City. She is the recipient of a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship and her work has appeared in Fusion Fragment and Corvid Queen. She has a BFA in Filmmaking from Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts, and she’s currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. Arielle writes historical fiction with speculative elements, and sometimes speculative fiction with historical elements. Her two favorite places in the world are movie theaters and writing workshops—spaces where stories come to life—so she’s especially excited to be part of the Writopia team.