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 …
Written by Elsa and Matthew, Camp Co-DirectorsAdditional comments by workshop and elective instructors Malcolm, Jem, Peter, Rita, & Will We ran our 6th annual winter retreat at Camp Mariah over Presidents Day weekend this year! A smaller, more wintry version of WriCampia, our winter writing retreat (for tweens and teens) is a long weekend of …
Written by Lena Roy, Director of Teen Programs, and Peter Quinn-Jacobs, Associate Director of Operations LENA: Scholastic season may be over, and sure we’ve all rolled up our sleeves and gotten back to work, but as writers, we also need to celebrate when we can. We celebrate the fact that we submitted at all. It’s …
Written by Tasnim Hussain, Program Manager at Writopia Lab On February 11th, 2025, Writopia Publishing Lab celebrated the launch of Frightopia: The Second Edition with a celebratory reading for all 72 contributors. It was an uplifting and inspiring evening filled with writers, ages 7 to 16, who read excerpts of their published pieces to each …
Written by Lena Roy, Head of Writopia Lab’s Creative Portfolio Program Turning the Page (TtP) hosted a Virtual Cozy Crafts event this past Saturday afternoon while many of us in the Northeast were preparing for a snowstorm! TtP is a literary social justice committee started by members of the Creative Portfolio program in 2019, whose …