By Matthew Jellison and the Instructors at Writopia Lab Each spring we hold a series of professional developments for our instructors that expands our resources and punches in on a specific element of our teaching practice. Last year, we focused on the hard skills and how we can fold grammar and mechanics into workshop holistically. …
Written by Rebecca Wallace-Segall, Founder and CEO, Writopia Lab In April, Writopia Lab held its 2025 Gala. A new dynamic on our Board of Directors allowed for new ideas to flow. My heart still feels full from the entire process. Here were some exciting details and takeaways: 1) For the first time in many years, …
Written by Léna Roy, Director of Teen Programs, and Rebecca Wallace-Segall, Founder and CEO A central tenet of our youth development work: in community, we shall be held up and thrive. This is what motivates us each year to make the CP Getaway happen! (CP is the acronym for Creative Portfolio.) Over the last weekend in …
Written by Elsa Bermúdez, Associate Director of Specialty Programs We had the honor of hosting the Scholastic Gold Medal winners Open Mic at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square on June 10th from 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM. We loved connecting with winners before the event with some editing notes (to meet the 1-minute time …
Written by Elsa Bermudez, Associate Director of Specialty Programs We had a beautiful end-of-trimester reading at the Brooklyn Public Library in Park Slope for our Brooklyn Lab writers on May 27th. For some of our readers, it was their first time sharing their work out loud for an audience. For others, they have read their …
Written by Rita Feinstein, DC Regional Manager Date: Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025Location: Tenley-Friendship Library We were blown away by the turnout for our End-of-Year Reading! We invited all our young writers to share an excerpt of their work with a supportive audience of friends, family, and fellow writers. Tara Prakash, a longtime Writopian and now …
By Léna Roy, Director of Teen Programs, Writopia Lab On Saturday, April 26th, Writopia hosted another Teen Open Mic event in partnership with the esteemed Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Writopia has long partnered with the Nuyorican, but it wasn’t until a year and a half ago that we were approached with the idea of a monthly …
By Léna Roy, Director of Teen Programs On March 30th, 2025, 250 teen writers—and their families—came to Reid Castle at Manhattanville College to be celebrated for winning Scholastic Writing Awards in the Hudson to Housatonic region in New York. Out of over 2,500 pieces submitted to the H2H region, 169 received gold keys, 266 received …
By Elsa Bermudez, Associate Director of Specialty Programs On Friday, March 28th, 2025, Malcolm and I led the Open Mic for Scholastic Award winners at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC! The event was beautiful: 40 teen writers shared innovative, heartwarming, powerful, and often funny excerpts from their 2025 Scholastic Art & Writing gold …
By Peter Quinn-Jacobs, Operations and Scholastic Awards Affiliate Manager, Writopia Lab and Rita Feinstein, Regional Manager, Writopia DC On Sunday, March 9th, we celebrated the regional winners of the Scholastic Writing Awards in the DC Metro Area. The ceremony, held at the UDC Theater of the Arts, opened with a high-energy performance by young dancers …