Chief Executive Officer
Founder

Rebecca founded Writopia Lab in April 2007, and currently directs the national organization. You can read the founding story in The Village Voice. She designed the organization’s mission and no-barriers sliding scale model, as well as its instructional approach, which has been embraced by thousands of children, teens, schools, and nonprofit partners across the country. In 2015, she established Writopia’s Training Institute that serves the youth development sector and the Department of Education and established The Positive Literacy Collaborative in partnership with Goddard Riverside in 2019 both with the support of the Pinkerton Foundation. Rebecca has led the organization’s growth and impact in NYC, while establishing and overseeing its labs in the DC Metro region, NY Metro North, Chicago, Los Angeles, and The Bay Area.

She writes, presents, and curates panels for schools, events, and conferences on a variety of topics including “The Case for Youth Voice, Creative Writing, and Joy-Based Writing Programs in Schools and After School,” "Building Safe Spaces: The Power of Creative Writing for Kids Who Have Experienced Trauma," "How to Inspire Joy and Creativity through Thought Competition,” “Partnering for Literacy Impact”, and "How to Love Writing for High School and College Admittance." She oversees communications and development at Writopia Lab.

In the founding five years of Writopia Lab, Rebecca won multiple teaching awards including the Scholastic Awards' 2012 Ovation Inspired Teacher Award for submitting the most outstanding senior portfolios on the national level and for "developing a method of working with students that inspires them to create original work that embodies their unique, personal voice.... Because of [her] tutelage... these students are now empowered to bring that voice into the broader world..." She has also won 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.

Rebecca oversees impact assessment at Writopia. She studied at Harvard Business School's Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations for organizational leaders in 2015 and continues to oversee Writopia’s impact assessment team's practices as a Youth Inc partner. She won a 2021 scholarship to attend Columbia University’s certificate program in business excellence for nonprofit leaders and is currently completing her Master's in Urban Education Policy at CUNY Graduate Center.

Rebecca also serves on Writopia Lab’s Board of Directors and is thrilled to have a team of accomplished board members from various social and business sectors, to help shape the future of writing education, and Writopia’s literary arts, youth development culture.

Executive Director

Yael has been a member of the Writopia Lab team since 2011. As the Co-Associate Executive Director, she oversees programs nationally and supports all instructors and workshops at Writopia’s Upper West Side lab. Yael’s favorite role at Writopia is that of instructor; she works with writers of all ages in all genres, including college essay. She has been recognized as an “Outstanding Educator” by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2018, and her students have been awarded National Medals, including American Voice Awards, Best in Grade Awards, and Silver Medals with Distinction in their senior portfolios.

Yael is also the lead Program Developer of Writopia Lab’s Language Play program, which runs enriching early-literacy engagement for the emerging writers. She has helped over 300 preschoolers become filmmakers as part of the Language Play Filmmaking program, and she regularly brings the program into UPre-Ks in homeless shelters and Title 1 schools in New York City. She also developed Writopia Lab’s service trip to Quito, Ecuador and has led the annual trip each year. She co-created and runs WriCampia, working closely with all instructors, counselors, and campers year-round.

Yael graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2022 with a Masters in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship. At Harvard, she was a recipient of a Saul Zaentz Fellowship, awarded to emerging leaders in early childhood education. She holds a BA in English Literature from Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University. She lives in Manhattan but will always call Queens home!

Director of Teen Programs

Léna has been part of the Writopia world since 2009 and has been working with kids and teens in New York City's northern suburbs since 2010. In 2018, she launched our pre-college program for teens, Creative Portfolio, which became national in 2020.  From 2014 to present, Léna has been recognized by the Scholastic Awards "as an outstanding educator whose dedication, commitment, and guidance are represented by student work selected for national honors." Léna earned her BA from Barnard 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 as a creative arts therapist; or through her own writing discipline, as fostered by her late grandmother, author Madeleine L'Engle, teaching her to transform the solitary nature of writing into a sacred sense of community, where her art and the art of others can flourish. Léna is the author of Edges (FSG), and several essays and books including co-authoring Becoming Madeleine, a Biography of the Author of A Wrinkle in Time by Her Granddaughters. 

Associate Director of Specialty Programs
Brooklyn Regional Manager (Interim) 

Elsa Bermúdez has loved leading creative writing, essay writing, comedy writing, and graphic noveling workshops at Writopia Lab since 2014! As Associate Director of Specialty Programs, she runs Writopia Lab’s scholarship program, Write to Recognition, and several off-site partnership programs. Elsa is a writer, artist, and educator. She earned her BA in Philosophy from Providence College and her MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from The New School. Her short story, Agency, was published in H.O.W. Journal's Issue 11. She also studied improv and sketch comedy writing at UCB. Elsa has written, produced, and performed for comedy stages around New York City, including the Magnet Theater, the Pit, and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. As an artist, she has published comics and illustrations in issues 8 and 9 of Brown Sugar Lit. Elsa is also a Director for WriCampia and currently runs our Brooklyn Lab in Park Slope.

Associate Director of Education
Instructor

Matthew Jellison is over the moon to be serving as Senior Manager of Education at Writopia Lab. He began as a creative writing instructor in summer of 2017 and since has had the privilege of working on writing with some extraordinary kids. Matthew is playwright, actor, educator, and native New Yorker. He is the author of the play cycle, the giants. the giants, parts one and two was produced by Loft 227 in winter of 2016, and he played the character Elliot. the giants, part three has been presented at TOWN Stages, Barn Arts Collective, and Cloud City. His other plays include Who Killed Cupid? (the Claque, Signature Theater DC) and ability (workshop at The Kennedy Center). Matthew is the 2012/13 Kenan Playwriting Fellow at the Kennedy Center, an inaugural 2018 Fellow at TOWN Stages, a two-time Playwriting Fellow at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, an alumnus of FreshGround Pepper Playground Playgroup, an alumnus of SPACE on Ryder Farm, and a finalist for the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Prior to Writopia Lab, Matthew worked with kids and teens at the education non-profit, 52nd Street Project (where he had been a kid himself growing up), Marquis Studios, the Kaufman Cultural Center, and Manhattan Theatre Club’s education department. As an actor, he has been seen at Ensemble Studio Theater, New York Theater Workshop, and others. He graduated from the acting school at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Program Manager, The Writopia Music Lab
Creative Writing and Songwriting Instructor

Malcolm Knowles has been part of the Writopia Lab team since 2018. He is a writer and multi-instrumentalist originally from Houston, Texas, where he learned to record and release music during his teenage years. He later attended Sarah Lawrence College with a focus in Jazz Guitar, Composition, and Radio. During the summer, Malcolm teaches Creative Writing and Songwriting at both the Writopia Full Day camp and WriCampia, and is the Division Head of Upper Boys at WriCampia. After two years of developing the Writopia Songwriting Studio and its camp electives, Malcolm co-designed, launched, and began overseeing the Writopia Music Foundry in 2021. Both programs are offered as part of Writopia's Music Lab. During the school year, Malcolm helps young and teen writers navigate the process of Essay Writing, Creative Writing, and Songwriting. When not teaching, you can often find Malcolm next to the closest musical instrument.

D.C. Regional Manager
Program Manager

Program Manager
Instructor

Tasnim Hussain is a creative writing and essay writing instructor at Writopia Lab, where she offers support to young writers throughout their writing process. Tasnim graduated as salutatorian from Hunter College, where she majored in English with minors in Education and Sociology. She has taught in public schools throughout the city, working with students in many different contexts and settings in English classrooms. In awe of the creative genius of Writopia Lab writers, she finds herself constantly learning from their passion and enthusiasm. In her free time, Tasnim enjoys writing short fiction and free verse poetry, and she has been published in GRLQUASH, a bi-annual literary magazine, and Hunter College's The OliveTree Review.

Program Manager
Instructor

Shanille Martin joined the WriCampia team as a counselor and assistant instructor in 2019 while still at Purchase College (studying Creative Writing and minoring in Psychology and Literature). Since she graduated in 2020, she has been teaching creative writing and debate workshops at camp and at Writopia full-time. Shanille has been published in various magazines and platforms such as Gandy Dancer, Newsweek, Italics Mine, and Submissions Magazine. She is a co-founder of Brown Sugar Literary Magazine which publishes the marginalized voices of women of color. Shanille was the captain of her high school debate team and is thrilled to now not only teach creative writing but also debate at Writopia. She is currently working on her first novel. Shanille’s favorite things about coming to camp are running the Voice Culture Race (VCR) club and seeing returning faces from previous years! 

Instructor

Jacquelyn Stolos can barely contain her excitement about joining the Writopia Lab team in Los Angeles this spring! Jacquelyn began her writing career as an elementary schooler filling up spiral-bound notebooks while perched on a mossy rock in the woods behind her childhood home. Her habits have barely changed since. She studied English and French literature at Georgetown University, where she completed an honors thesis of short stories and won the Annabelle Bonner Medal for short fiction. For her masters, Jacquelyn was awarded the Writers in the Public Schools fellowship to study fiction in New York University’s MFA program. She has also workshopped at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, and the New York Summer Writers Institute. Her short fiction has appeared in The Atticus Review, Conte Online, and The Oddville Press. Jacquelyn is an ardent believer in the power of story and is always looking for ways to spread the love through education. She previously worked as a teaching artist at Teachers and Writers Collaborative, leading creative writing workshops in elementary and middle school classrooms, as well as an adjunct professor at New York University. Jacquelyn's first novel, Edendale, will be released by Creature Publishing, a feminist horror press, in the spring of 2020.

Instructor

Sophia is thrilled to be joining Writopia Lab, Westchester as a Writing Instructor. Sophia is an author of books for children and young adults. Her first book, What Things Mean, is a young adult novel published by Scholastic Asia (2016). This work won the Grand Prize at the 2014 Scholastic Asian Book Awards, and is one of the first young adult stories about the Philippines to have been published by Scholastic. What Things Mean was included in the Philippine Daily Inquirer's Top 10 Books of 2016. Her second book, a children's picture book titled Soaring Saturdays, won 2nd Prize at the Samsung KidsTime Authors' Awards (2015). It was digitized into an interactive e-book app in 2016 and is set for print release by Scholastic Asia in 2018. Sophia wanted to be many things growing up: doctor, teacher, ballerina, ninja, crime-fighting international spy, wizard, time traveler, journalist, and lawyer. She likes to think she can be all these things through writing. She studied creative writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman, and is currently a Creative Writing MFA Candidate with a concentration in Writing for Children and Young Adults at The New School in New York City. You can find her online at www.sophianlee.com.

Instructor

Justin Allen is excited to be an instructor at Writopia Lab. Justin is the author of two novels, Slaves of the Shinar and Year of the Horse. He is also the author of three plays. Murder at the Masque: The Casebook of Edgar Allen Poe and Gilbert and Sullivan, The Ballet! were both commissioned and produced by Dances Patrelle. The Beatitudes was commissioned by Eidolon Ballet in Concert and was produced for the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival. Justin is curently formulating a new script, which he wants to call Superhero: The Legend of the Lightning Defender. Justin earned his MFA at Columbia University and studied Comic Book Scripting at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He loves fantasy and science-fiction, mystery and alternate history, love stories and comic books, and he adores work that defies classification. He has taught writing as a part of the Columbia Writing Workshops at Bank Street College of Education, led a seminar focusing on graphic novels and comic books at Bethesda Academy, and spent years as a children's ballet master in New York City. He looks forward to reveling weekly in the work of the talented and creative young writers that make Writopia Lab a special place.

Registration Associate

Jem is a former student of Writopia Lab’s creative writing workshops and is incredibly excited to rejoin the Writopia family as a registration associate. Jem is a graduate of Ithaca College, where he studied writing and theater. Inspired by Writopia Lab, Jem founded a student theater group at Ithaca College that focused on workshopping and producing original plays and musicals. With this group, Jem produced five shows and workshopped many more. Jem enjoys writing magical realism, absurdism, and urban fantasy. He is well studied in writing many forms, such as novel writing, short story, playwriting, screenwriting, poetry, and more. He is currently working on two novel projects. Jem is also an accomplished musician and composer, having played the flute for nearly 12 years, and is currently learning piano. Outside of writing and playing music, Jem enjoys watching movies, playing video games, and seeing what New York City has in store for him.

Instructor

Amy Dupcak is the author of Dust, Short Stories (2016) and co-editor and designer of Words After Dark: A Lyrics, Lit & Liquor Anthology (2020). After studying Creative Writing and Film History at Sarah Lawrence, she earned an MFA in Fiction from The New School. She has worked as a music and culture journalist, assistant editor, adjunct English professor, and high-school creative writing teacher. Amy has been a Writopia instructor since 2012, primarily working with teens in different capacities. She also works with adults across genres at The Writer’s Rock as an instructor, mentor, editor, and manager.

Amy's fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Sonora Review, Entropy, Phoebe, Fringe, Litro, Hypertext, Bookanista, and other literary journals, while her poetry has appeared in Pangyrus, Passengers, District Lit, The Night Heron Barks, The Blue Mountain Review, American Writers Review, and Alternative Field & Avenue 50 Studio’s “In Isolation” anthology. She is currently working on a second story collection as well as a novel.

Instructor

Samantha Schnell is excited to join the team at Writopia Lab! Sam is a writer and teacher from New York City whose work has appeared in Witness Magazine and Eclectica Magazine and is forthcoming in Sonora Review. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Columbia University, but these days she mostly writes poetry. She loves working creatively with kids and teenagers and has taught writing at Columbia University, The Ali Forney Center and East Harlem Tutorial Program. When she's not writing or teaching, Sam is trying to keep up with her dog, cat and toddler, all of whom appear regularly in her poems.

Instructor

Rafaela Bassili is so thrilled to join Writopia Lab as a part-time Creative Writing instructor. Rafaela is a writer and translator from São Paulo, Brazil, who writes about movies and culture. Her work has been featured in Gawker, Notebook MUBI, Paste Magazine, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University, where she was a Teaching Fellow. Before that, she got a Bachelor's Degree in Screenwriting at Chapman University in Southern California. Rafaela loves movies, books, and workshops—she is so excited to be a part of the Writopia community!

Instructor

Writopia Lab has been a part of Kaley's life since she was eleven years old and joined her first workshop. Now she's an instructor and she's so happy to be back! After receiving her BA in Film and Media Studies at Columbia University (Summa Cum Laude), Kaley went on to earn her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she received the Graduate Venable Herndon Award in Screenwriting. Kaley's work for the screen has been recognized by the Academy Nicholl Fellowship and the Black List, and her plays have been produced across the East Coast. When not writing or teaching, you can find Kaley at her karate dojo. She's thrilled to once again enter the magical spaces of Writopia Lab!

Instructor

Jane Young began teaching Writopia Lab workshops in 2019. Her plays have been seen in over a dozen Off- and Off Off-Broadway venues in New York, and her short film, "River," was screened in international festivals in New York City, Toronto, Brazil, and Houston. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she served as a non-fiction editor for its literary magazine, Lumina. Her fiction debuted in the premier issue of the magazine, and additional stories have been published in Rock and a Hard Place Magazine. She previously collaborated with former New Directions Publishing editor and author Thomas Keith on several plays, and a book of their poetry, The Histories of Gladys, was published by Mellon Poetry Press, resulting in a critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway production directed by Obie Award-winner Edward Cornell. Past teaching credits include State University of New York at Purchase College, the Women’s Correctional Facility at Bedford Hills, LEAP, and Goddard-Riverside Community Center, and she currently teaches adults in several genres at The Writer's Rock.

Instructor

Vanessa Walters is thrilled to join the Writopia Lab in Brooklyn, teaching creative writing across all age groups. She is a novelist, playwright, poet, and journalist with an LLB in Law and French Law from the University College of London. Her published books are Rude Girls, Best Things in Life (Pan Macmillan, UK), Smoke! Othello! (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea), and The Lagos Wife (Simon & Schuster US, Penguin RandomHouse, UK). Vanessa has also had several plays staged, most recently Michael X (Almeida Theatre, UK). She has previously been a journalist for Thomson Reuters, The Financial Times, and The Guardian Nigeria. She has fellowships from Tin House and The Millay Colony. She has previously taught creative writing workshops to children via The Arvon Foundation in the UK and as the Writer-In-Residence for The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. She has also, as part of the self-founded Hidden Country collective, delivered free online weekly writing workshops to the community since 2020. Vanessa is on the Pen Parentis board and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music advisory council. Atria Books will publish her forthcoming novel, Black Excellence, in 2026.  In her spare time, Vanessa plays Mom to her two children and tends to her out-of-control TBR in Brooklyn.

Instructor

Kendra is so excited to join the Writopia Lab team as a Creative Writing and College Essay Instructor! She is inspired by the energy and imagination of young writers and is thrilled to watch them discover and develop their own unique voices. Originally from the Pennsylvania countryside, Kendra graduated from York College of Pennsylvania with a BS in biology, a BA in professional writing, and a minor in creative writing. In 2021, she completed her MFA in nonfiction writing at Columbia University. During her academic career, Kendra was very active in publishing, from leading as an editor-in-chief for a campus newspaper and literary magazine, to serving as a poetry board and nonfiction board member of the Columbia Journal. Kendra is always looking to stay busy and active in the city; she is an NJCAA College Basketball Official, supervises the Intramural Sport program at Columbia University, and is a professional taste tester in SoHo. She’s working on two books: a memoir with focus on her transition to New York City and the social dynamics and unthinkable experiences as a taste tester, and a nonfiction book that combines memoir, history, interviews, and research to examine undocumented historical events with the theme of rewriting one’s own memories.