Welcome to the 2024 Annual Newsletter. First, congratulations to the thousands of Writopia writers, from young and teen writers to instructors and full-time staff, who set out and completed the writing of original pieces this year! A few hundred members of our community also bravely submitted writing to the 2024 Scholastic Awards and to other rigorous platforms, publications, and publishing houses. 

We are thrilled to share some of their exciting news below. (Below, “medals” are national awards, “keys” are regional awards.)

Writopia Writers News

Awards & Publications

• Adiyah Parham—We are thrilled to share and congratulate Adiyah Parham for winning the most prestigious writing award for teens in the nation, The Scholastic Awards’ Gold Medal for her Writing Portfolio. Of the thousands of writing portfolios submitted from across the country, only seven seniors win this prestigious $12,500 scholarship award. Adiyah has taken part in Writopia’s selective Creative Portfolio program for three years, and won a production in Writopia’s 2022 Worldwide Plays festival in New York City! Adiyah, we are so proud of your dedication to your craft and for the talent you have elevated with grace, wisdom, and passion.

• Tara Prakash—became Maryland’s First State Youth Poet Laureate and won eight Scholastic gold keys, seven silver keys, and eleven honorable mentions for poetry, personal essay, critical essay, flash fiction, and short story. Other awards she received: 2024 Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate; National YoungArts Awards in Creative Nonfiction; Leonard L. Milberg ’53 High School Poetry Prize; DePaul’s Blue Book Best American High School Writing. She was also published in Blue Marble Review. Congratulations on all!

• Dina Lusztig Noyes—who has been selected to participate in Writopia’s Advanced Writing Seminar (AWS) at the New School and this summer at Pratt became Santa Cruz’s First Youth Poet Laureate! We are so proud of your dedication, passion, community engagement, and talent!

• Maria Rojas—was awarded a Gold and Silver Key from the Scholastic Awards and selected as a student speaker to present at the Gold Key Award Ceremony in New York City. She was also published in The Literary Kaleidoscope, her school’s literary magazine, and served as the co-creative designer and editor of her school’s literary publication. Congratulations on an amazing year!

“Every Monday night, Maria comes with a smile from her workshop. She has built a fantastic community at Writopia Lab and made friends with her classmates and instructor. She has had the chance to submit her writing to multiple places, learning the lesson of what rejection feels like as well as acceptance. She won a Gold and Silver key at the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and she thanks her instructor Amy because she supported her with the submission process. Amy also supported her as she wrote and memorized a speech to give at the ceremony. Maria now wishes to minor in poetry in her college career.  So, thank you all for allowing so many teens to have the chance to create their fondness for writing. Maria would never have known this side of herself without the support of Writopia Lab!” – Vilma, Maria’s mom 

• Cora Anderson’s piece “First Snow of the Year” was published in The New York Times as a winner of the Teen Tiny Memoirs Contest. Her piece “California” was published in Rust & Moth.
• Emi Shapiro was a finalist for The New York Times’ Teen Tiny Memoirs Contest.

• Sonali Browning was featured as a rising poet in the online newspaper The Mamaroneck Observer; two silver keys and one honorable mention in poetry; and also won first place in the Lifting Up Westchester Essay Contest and received $500. Sonali also had a poem featured in the Floodwaters Documentary created by Westchester’s poet laureate BK Fischer, and three poems accepted for publication in Creative Communications, and her poems and stories were selected for publication in two Writopia publications: Turning the Page anthology and Frightopia.  

• Shreya Ganguly won a Scholastic Gold Key for her senior writing portfolio. Her poem “We Sit Close” was published in Parallax, and other works have been published in Interlochen Review and is forthcoming in GSU’s Anthology of Outstanding High School Writing, Fledge and Writopia’s social justice anthology Turning the Page, We, the Treasured.

• Ava Barcelona won a Scholastic Gold Medal for “ISANG BANSA, DALAWANG DIWA (ONE NATION, TWO SPIRITS).”
• Nicola Bailey won a Scholastic Silver Medal for “Boxes.”
• James Blenko won a Scholastic Gold Medal for “The Foreigner.”
• Wyatt Foster won a Scholastic Gold Medal in Critical Essay for his nuclear semiotics project.
• Gabe Horowitz won a Scholastic Silver Medal for “Porcine Psychopathy: Peppa Pig’s Mosaic of Evil.”
• Yoonsuh Kim won a Scholastic Gold Medal for “Pigeon Clouds” and a Silver Medal for “Letters to my Mother.”
• Olivia Romano won a Scholastic Gold Medal for “Capirotada Recipe” and a Silver Medal for “Car Radio.”
• Twyla Shand won a Scholastic Silver Medal for “Empty-Handed.”
• Ruby Sinder won a Scholastic Silver Medal for “Always”; two Scholastic gold keys, one silver key, and two honorable mentions for her poetry; and was published in Millennium High School’s lit mag.
• Annabel Zhou won a Scholastic Gold Medal for “Miracles.”
• Hollyn Alpert’s poem “Gold to Gray,” won the Society of Young Inklings book contest and will be published in an anthology; and won a gold key in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.
• Carmen Ashworth won a Scholastic silver key for her science fiction and fantasy piece.
• Zoe Becker won a Scholastic gold key for her personal essay and two honorable mentions for her short story and flash fiction piece.
• Claire Breslow won a Scholastic silver key in short story and three honorable mentions in poetry, flash fiction, and novel writing.
• Olivia Brown’s poetry was recognized in a school poetry contest.
• Isabella Cai won a Scholastic silver key in poetry and personal essay, as well as an honorable mention for humor.
• Dakota Cameron won three Scholastic honorable mentions for flash fiction, short story, and personal essay and memoir.
• Aravah Chaiken won a Scholastic gold key for critical essay, two silver keys for short story, and one honorable mention for science fiction and fantasy.
• Alexis Chase: The prologue to a novella in progress was published in Alexis’ school’s literary magazine, the Eidolon, and in the newsletter of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House.
• Nell Choi won a Scholastic gold key for personal essay and an honorable mention for flash fiction. Nell is a published author, an artist, and an activist. Check her out here.
• Blake Feinstein won a Scholastic silver key in humor and an honorable mention in personal essay and memoir.
• Michaela Frey won three honorable mentions from the Scholastic Awards for Poetry; and had four of her poems and stories accepted and published in Teen Ink.
• Devra Goldhaber won a Scholastic silver key for flash fiction, as well as a silver key and two honorable mentions for poetry.
• Ananya Govind won a Scholastic honorable mention for her short story.
• Sanja Greenawalt won a Scholastic gold key in critical essay and novel writing, as well as a silver key in personal essay and memoir.
• Stephanie Groves won an honorable mention for her Scholastic writing portfolio.
• Thuy Holder-Vinh received an Honorable Mention from the Brooklyn Public Library’s 2024 Teen Writing Contest & Ned Vizzini Prize for her short story, “Wonderland.” [Story available at BPL branches this summer.] 
• Joanne Hwang’s op-ed “Reimagining Writing at Stuyvesant” was published in The Spectator.
• Naomi Jeske won one Scholastic gold key, three silver keys, and four honorable mentions for poetry.
• Lea Karian won a Scholastic silver key for her writing portfolio; a silver key in personal essay and memoir; and one gold key, one silver key and five honorable mentions for poetry.
• Samantha Katz won a Scholastic silver key for short story and an honorable mention for novel writing. 
• Katie Kim won a Scholastic gold key in short story, a gold key and honorable mention in science fiction, a silver key and honorable mention in poetry, and an honorable mention in novel writing.
• Zack Lam won two Scholastic silver keys and an honorable mention for his poetry and critical essay.
• Emma Laurence won a Scholastic silver key in poetry.
• Chloe Lee won a Scholastic gold key, a silver key, and three honorable mentions for poetry.
• Koi Lerner’s poem “Slaughter” was published in Teen Ink.
• Henry Lomma’s short story “Trish” was published in Blue Marble Review; “Count George” published in the Frightopia anthology.
• Nick Marino won a Scholastic gold key and honorable mention in science fiction and fantasy, a silver key and honorable mention in dramatic script, and two honorable mentions in flash fiction.
• Oona McPhearson won a Scholastic gold key and silver key for short story.
• Andrew Nam won a Scholastic gold key for critical essay.
• Izzy Oh won two Scholastic silver keys and an honorable mention for her poetry, flash fiction, and critical essay; and won second place in the Mary Ann Hutchinson Memorial Youth Story Contest.
• Viraaj Raofield won three Scholastic honorable mentions for novel writing and poetry.
• Nina Rogers won a 2024 Honorable Mention from the Scholastic Writing Awards for her short story Pete & Madeline.
• Annalise Ross won a Scholastic silver key in personal essay and memoir as well as dramatic script.
• Zahra Sadoughi won a Scholastic gold key and American Voices Nomination for her poetry and a silver key for her personal essay and memoir.
• Hana Sakr won three Scholastic silver keys for poetry.
• Fenley Scurlock won a Scholastic gold key and honorable mention for humor and science fiction & fantasy.
• Emi Shapiro won two Scholastic silver keys for her short story and personal essay, as well as an honorable mention for critical essay.
• Divya Sharma won a Scholastic silver and honorable mention in critical essay.
• Emily Shull won a silver key for flash fiction and two honorable mentions for critical essay.
• Avantika Singh won a Scholastic silver key in critical essay.
• Lucy Steward won two Scholastic silver keys and an honorable mention for critical essay as well as a silver key and honorable mention for poetry.
• Alexandra Steyn won three Scholastic silver keys for critical essay, a silver key for short story, a silver key and honorable mention for flash fiction, and an honorable mention for personal essay and memoir.
• Hugh Vickery won a Scholastic gold key for his poetry.
• Jo Wallace-Segall has two pieces of literary fiction, “There,” and “Coconut Juice” to be published in the forthcoming issue of The Center School’s literary magazine.
• Maxanne Wallace-Segall won one Scholastic gold key and one honorable mention for journalism and one gold key for her fiction. Her opinion pieces, “Are You Ok?: Muslim & Jewish Connection,” “Peace is Possible,” and “How to Celebrate Passover During a War,”  were published in The Spectator.
• Lilia Werve won an honorable mention from the 2024 Scholastic Awards for her poetry (and a Gold Medal last year!)
• Nirali Yedendra was published in Stone Soup twice for the pieces “My Liberating Brain” and “You Own It“.
• Jonathan Zhang’s essay, “The Woman on the New Quarter”, received a Scholastic Honorable Mention Award.
• And congratulations to the following teens on completing their first year of our selective Creative Portfolio program!
  • Mariela Alschuler, Henry Arroyo, Sahara Asher, Advika Asthana, Mason Avery, Lilah Baez, Nicola Bailey, Julia Barney, Owen Berland, Sonali Browning, Ian Burch, Isabella Cai, Megan Chan, Emily Charlton, Mahnaz Daud-Basrai, Sydney Davis, Michaela Frey, Shreya Ganguly, Maya Graff, Miriam Hale, Thuy Holder-Vinh, Sara Horowitz, Madelyn Hsieh, Emma Knisbacher, Avni Krishna, Maxwell Lally, Annika Lamberti, Joshua Lancman, Evie Lee, Serine Lee, Hunter Maguire, Edy Meyers, Brendan Moran, Netta Nov, Linda Palmer, Harper Ragle, Viraaj Raofield, Zahra Sadoughi, Lili Sella, Cate Shanahan, Aashvi Singh, Alexandra Steyn, Ryan Tang, Yanic Valbrune, Maxanne Wallace-Segall, & Celeste Wilbur
  • Shout out to the dedicated Eva Djordjevic for completing her second year of Creative Portfolio while Zooming in from Spain!

College Bound!

Congratulations to our seniors for completing an incredible four years of school and Writopia! Shout out to Léna Roy, our Director of Teen Programs, for spearheading the fabulous Creative Portfolio program, publications, and trips! And a special shout out to our Creative Portfolio and WriCampia seniors who have dedicated hours of writing, interning, editing, organizing, and traveling with us over the years:

We have loved EVERY second of supporting your creative writing and college essay writing processes. So far, our college essay writers have shared with us that they will be freshmen at the following amazing institutions in the fall: 

• Berkeley
• Boston College
• Bucknell, Arts Merit Scholarship in Creative Writing
• Chapman (Screenwriting)
• George Washington University (Honors Program)
• Hampshire
• McGill
• Muhlenberg
• Northwestern
• NYU Tisch Dramatic Script
• Pace
• Pomona
• Princeton
• Smith
• Stanford
• SUNY Oneonta
• SUNY Purchase
• Tufts
• University of Chicago
• University of Toronto
• Vanderbilt University (Posse Scholar)
• Vassar
• Yale

Each year since 2020, we have published an increasing number of books including works from our own programs (at our labs and schools) in addition to the works of students from Title 1 schools that come to us to provide publication as a service to their schools. Shout out to Will Bond who makes publication possible for hundreds of students each year! 

• Connecting Across Cultures
  • Featuring selected Jewish and Muslim teen writers: Zoe Becker, Dania Bressler, Leila Cisse, Mahnaz Daud-Basrai, Heba Elkouraichi, Zara Hai, Ilana Horwitz, Leonid Metlitsky, Millie Nathanson, & Anniyah Rizvi.
• “Loved Your Essay” Second Edition
  • Featuring nine new college essays by Writopia alumni: Eli Berliner, Daniela Brillon, Ella Davis, Sophia Hall, Eliana Herzog, Ailynn O’Neill, Camil Piperni, Eli Prager, & Sophia Rubin.
• Frightopia
  • Celebrating the writing of 76 selected Writopia writers.
  • Full list of contributors here!
• A Wish Upon a Snowflake (forthcoming)
  • Celebrating the writing of 28 Writopia writers.
  • Full list of contributors here!
• The Dreams of Immigrants
  • Partnership with International Community High School.
• Mi Llegada A Los Estados Unidos / My Arrival in the United States
  • Partnership with International Community High School.
• Wonders of the Wild: A WriCampia Anthology
  • Full list of contributors here!
• Finding Writopia: Where Craft Meets Joy (forthcoming)
  • by Rebecca Wallace-Segall, Léna Roy, Yael Schick, and Danielle Sheeler, with guest contributors Elsa Bermudez, Rita Feinstein, Tasnim Hussain, Matthew Jellison, and Janelle Williams, and a Foreword by Writopia Board of Directors Member, Kevin R Free and Founder of Writopia’s Worldwide Plays Festival, Dan Kitrosser.
• We, the Treasured (forthcoming Turning the Page Anthology)
  • Editors in Chief
    • Lea Karian, Eli Prager, & Emma Wasserman
  • Committee/ Editors
    • Nola Brooks, Sonali Browning, Nell Choi, Shreya Ganguly, Emi Shapiro, & Bernice Zhao
  • Contributors to Anthology
    • Jude Al-Mufti, Nola Brooks, Sonali Browning, Nell Choi, Edith Domanski, Shreya Ganguly, Naomi Jeske, Lea Karian, Vainavi Kumar, Eli Prager, Viraaj Raofield, Emily Rousakis, Tessa Sagner, Cordelia Scoville, Ruby Seidner, Sofia Sherer, Emma Wasserman, & Bernice Zhao

Instructor News

Publications

• Rafaela Bassili was published in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Vulture, Notebook MUBI, and Cleveland Review of Books.
• Elsa Bermúdez had “Two short comics and art published in Brown Sugar Lit (Shanille’s magazine!); comics “The Sky is Bluer” and “Gum” published in Issue #8 The Eleventh Hour; illustrations “My Tongue is My Crown,” “Speaking (in Tongues),” “Fable,” and “From a Distance” published in Issue #9 Magic Hour. 
• Ivory Butler’s YA murder mystery, Unreliable, is now being submitted to publishers.
• Jordan Casomar’s book How to Lose a Best Friend is forthcoming from MTV Books in September.
• Amy Dupcak is now Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal Cagibi. She read her prose at the Apartment Party performance series and at the long-running bi-monthly series Lyrics, Lit & Liquor (for which she writes original themed trivia).
• Niki Fakhoori is the author of ”A Dream Of Your Own: The Formulas of Unova” published on PokeCommunity Daily.
• Rita Feinstein is the author of the new novel Meet Me in the Fourth Dimension, published by Page Street.
• Camryn Garrett’s 4th book, her debut middle-grade novel called The Forgotten Summer of Seneca, will be published by Abrams in 2025.
• Sophia N. Lee published her books, “Holding On” and “Lolo’s Sari-sari Store”. “Holding On” received the following honors: Yellowhammer Picture Book Award (Top 10) Given by the Alabama School Library Association (2023-2024); Read Aloud Indiana Award Winner (Ageless Category ) Given by the Indiana Library Federation (2023). “Lolo’s Sari-sari Store” was chosen as: a Best Picture Book of 2023 by the School Library Journal; a Notable Children’s Social Studies Book by the Children’s Book Council (2023); a Bank Street Best Picture Book of 2023 by the Bank Street Library; an Award Winner by the Rhode Island Children’s Book Award.
• Matthew Jellison wrote this beautiful piece about three of our amazing instructors and their moms — all of whom are retired reading and writing teachers! (See the video below from the Hard Skills training that their mothers spoke at!)
• Kendra Jones has been contributing reviews for The Front Row Center.
• Sam Schnell’s poetry was published in Sonora Review, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Atlanta Review, and Bicoastal Review.
• Carly Sorenson’s “Butch Drag Tango: The Life and Lyrics of Azucena Maizani,” a historical deep dive into a cross-dressing singer from the Golden Age of Tango, broadcast by Montez Press Radio on May 25th, 2024. Textile art titled “Watch Me” on display at the Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association Gallery as part of their Safe Space exhibit for Pride from May 30th – June 23rd, 2024. Poetry and dance performance titled “Safe Space” at the Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association Gallery on June 9. Carly will be reading from her work (including a short story called “Peel” and the artist’s statement for her textile art “Watch Me”) while dancers perform choreography inspired by her writing.
• Paulina Tesnow graduated from Sarah Lawrence in May with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction.
• Bianca Turetsky published three personal essays with TODAY.com.
• Noah Wilson: “The Old Kind of Memory,” short story (Orca – Issue #16, June 2024); “The Mind Like Water,” flash fiction (Chautauqua: Rooted and Growing – Issue #21, January 2024); “One Hundred Characters at an Amusement Park” short story (Third Street Review – Issue #2, June 2023);  “Solo Piano Vol. 1” EP (All music streaming platforms, May 2024); “Hold Out Thirst 2” single (All music streaming platforms, May 2024).
• Jane Young’s Short story “Vehicle,” upcoming in Rock and a Hard Place, Issue #13.

Theater Productions

• Lizz Mangan: “And the Lights of the Borealis Were Shining” at The Tank (February 2023); “Eyes and Teeth” at American Stage Theatre Company (October 2023), “Icarus and Amelia Earhart Had Tea This Morning” at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (April 2024); Finalist – INKubator, Arthouse Productions. Summer 2024 Playwriting Resident with First Kiss Theatre;
  Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference.
• Amalia Oliva Rojas’s play In the Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too was performed at Columbia University at the Schapiro Theatre and wrote her first adaptation titled Are you going to find your way out Uncle Vanya? performed at Columbia University at the Studio Theatre. She also had her playwriting international debut with It’s Not So Bad In My Brain as part of the Festival Alternativo de Teatro in Bogota, Colombia this past March. Finally, this month, she was awarded the Lydia Mendoza Graduate Fellowship on behalf of CFE International and The CUNY Institute of Mexican Studies!
• Cassandra Rose’s play “Skyflint” was produced as part of Director’s Haven 7 at Haven Chicago; staged reading of “Billy to His Friends” was produced by Celebration Theatre.
• Sam Stone’s play Finding Olive, was produced by the SheNYC Festival 2023, at The Connelly Theatre. Script to be licensed by SheNYC for regional productions nationwide.
• Susan Yassky is a Seven Devils Playwriting Conference semi-finalist.

Creative Writing Youth Development Leadership

• Awards—Tasnim Hussain, 2024 PASEsetters Award Winner.
  • In February, over 500 guests joined the Partnership for After School Education for their 2024 PASEsetter Awards Benefit, celebrating five NYC outstanding youth development educators, including the one and only Tasnim Hussain!
• Conferences — National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
  • In the fall of 2023, Yael Schick, Matthew Jellison, and Malcolm Knowles attended the NCTE annual conference and presented a panel at the Conference of English Leadership called “Writing Workshops as the Gateway to Empathy, Critical Thinking, and Transformation”.
  • In 2024, Writopia will be running two panels at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE):
    • Connecting Across Cultures: Jewish and Muslim Teens Share Their Stories During the Israel-Hamas War: the panel produced and led by Rebecca Wallace-Segall, Tasnim Hussain, Yael Schick, and CAC teens, Anniyah Rizvi and Lenny Metlitsky.
    • The Work of Play in the Classroom: Open-Ended Student-Centered Prompts and Games to Transform Your Writing Classroom.
• Professional Development: Marrying Joy & Rigor in New Innovative Trainings
  • This year Matthew Jellison designed and ran our most intensive
    “Hard Skills Week,” including a special forum with some incredible staff moms! Click here for more info.

Events News

Worldwide Plays Festival 2024

Congratulations to all of the selected teen Festival Fellows who worked and wrote so beautifully with their partner young playwrights:

• Teen Festival Fellows:
  • Isadora Ardizzoni, Masua Chaiken, Megan Chan, Julia Cramer, Stephanie Groves, Rena Jalon, Naomi Jeske, Bee Kanofsky, Annie Singh, & Bernice Zhao
• Young Co-Playwrights:
  • Parker Allen, Lily Boegli, Charlotte Caplan, Kian Campwala,  Emma Chabrowski, Avery Choi, Carla Citerman, Lola Greenman, Mirabelle Hoffman, Jiann Hong, Frida Meyer-Ebrecht, Samara Rotenberg, Aurelia Tahan, Clio Taylor, Orli Umlauf, & Lila Yu

Scholastic Awards Ceremonies in Westchester and DC

Congratulations to Peter Quinn-Jacobs, Michaela Florio, Léna Roy, and all of our amazing support staff, for spearheading the production of the DC and Westchester Scholastic Awards Ceremonies!

Essay Writing Conferences / Online and in DC

Congratulations to all the selected youth presenters (below) and to Elsa Bermúdez, Rita Feinstein, Michaela Florio, Tasnim Hussain, and Matthew Jellison for running another beautiful year of essay writing celebration.

• Isaac Abraham, Laurel Aronian, Chloe Bryant, David Cao, Vicky Chen, Catherine Fenlon, Daniel Freidland, Shrishti Ghosh, Allison Kim, Sophie Kim, David Lee, Noelle Lee, Caleigh McAteer, Jackie McVorran, Grace Molla, Sinead Molony, Alisa Montrose, Kate Quach, Aureliano Ruiz-Halpert, Cordelia Scoville, Nirupama Shivakumar, James Song, Abigail Sterner, Devan Tatlow, Laurentia Woo, Anthony Xu, Edwin Yoo, Johnathan Zhang, & Bernice Zhao

Writopia International Debate Tournaments

Congratulations to Shanille Martin who has been spearheading this super exciting, competitive Wrtiopia program.

From the June 8th, 2024 tournament:

• Two Writopia teams placed in the top teams with 2 wins out of their 3 rounds:
  • Team Witty Wizards: Peyton Yaffee, Nirali Ydenra, Carter Wang, and Michelle Batson-Greenberg. 
  • Team PEIPINVAL: Peichi Che, Pinwei Che, and Valentina Mafaro.
• Four Writopians placed in the top 10 speakers with the highest scores:
  • Peichi Che, Pinewi Che, Valentina Mafaro, and Nirali Ydendra. 

From the January 27th, 2024 tournament:

• Top speakers from Writopia:
  • Nirali Ydendra
  • Samrajya Singh
  • Diana Davidson
  • Esther Motia
  • Manya Guatam

Reading at New York Society for Ethical Culture

Open Mic Series at P&T Knitwear

Organizational News

We launched our first parent portal and we hope you love it! Shoutout to our brilliant operations team that dedicated a year to designing and coding: Jeremy Wallace-Segall, Peter Quinn-Jacobs, Rob Roy, and Rachel Aronson!

WriCampia

WriCampia moved to Camp Danbee in 2023 and we love it there!

Thank you Supergoop for sponsoring two 2024 WriCampia scholarships along with extra sunscreen for the entire camp! 

“It is the only sunscreen I use, I’m not kidding. This is great!” —Tasnim Hussain

Thank you Amy Smith and the Allan S. Gordon Foundation for your generous donations as well. We would not be able to bring all of our writers to camp without you all!

East Coast and West Coast Retreats

Elsa Bermudez and Michaela Florio launched Writopia’s first West Coast Winter Retreat!

2023-2024 Partnerships

Thanks to The Pinkerton Foundation, we had another amazing year working with the wonderful writers at Goddard Riverside sites and Homes for the Homeless, and providing about 50 writers on full scholarship for workshops and private sessions at our Manhattan and Brooklyn locations. In addition, we were able to run super fun workshops for youth development staff at both organizational sites!  In addition, we loved running admissions writing programs through the year at schools funded by the NYCDOE Chancellor’s Office and with many more partner schools and CBOS. 

We are especially excited to welcome three new partnership programs this past spring and this coming summer:

• Bronx Excellence
  • Shoutout to founder and CEO Charlene Floyd for supporting her school families with an amazing new program for PARENTS run by Writopia’s brilliant and deeply caring Malcolm Knowles who helped 20 Bronx Excellence parents reflect and write beautiful parent application essays for private school high school admissions!
• Amsterdam Houses at the NY Society for Ethical Culture
  • Thanks to Writopia grandmother Marlene Williamson at Ethical Culture, our 2023 gala donors, and the Pinkerton Foundation, we were able to run a free workshop last summer at Ethical for children from Amsterdam Public Houses.
• SEO Scholars Program
  • Shoutout to Randy M. Frazer, Associate Director of Programs & Student Success at SEO Scholars Program, for seeking early college essay support for the nearly 200 rising juniors their program will support this summer. We’re excited to familiarize these students with personal essay writing in order to prepare them to write college essays in the upcoming years.

New Writopia 2023-2024 Programs

• Connecting Across Cultures
  • Ten teen writers — five Jewish and five Muslim — from across the US were selected from a pool of dozens of high level applicants to take part in a free six week writing and sharing program. The next round is partially funded by The Pinkerton Foundation. 
• BOOKed for the Summer
  • Most of us are witnessing a decline in reading among youth. But in a 2024 parent survey, almost half of our families reported that their children became more engaged in reading as a result of their growing connection to the writing process. So we became inspired to create a fun community-driven workshop for both reading and writing to have the most impact! 
• Sports Writing
  • Writopia is a safe space for a diverse range of writers and young people. We are so happy to finally honor, beginning this summer, our sports lovers with a workshop where they can dig into their passion for the game through a writer’s lens.

New Titles

Part of the joy of working at Writopia is the ongoing opportunity to learn and grow from our writers and from each other, and the ability to channel and elevate our new insights into our work. Please help us congratulate our staff for another incredible year, including those who have earned new titles:

• Rebecca Wallace-Segall is now Chief Executive Officer.
• Yael Schick is now Executive Director.
• Matthew Jellison is now Associate Director of Education.
• Elsa Bermúdez is now Associate Director of Specialty Programs and Brooklyn Regional Manager (Interim).
• Michaela Florio is now Regional Manager, The Bay Area.
• Alex Minier is now Office Manager and Accounting Specialist .
• Shanille Martin is now Program Manager.
• Jem Werner is now Registration and Overnight Programs Coordinator.
• Carly Sorenson is now Registration Coordinator.
• Bianca Turetsky, Associate Director of Programs and Brooklyn Regional Manager, will be taking a one-year leave to pursue her Masters in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship at the Harvard School of Education. We are so excited to learn from her upon her return in June 2025!

Board of Directors News

• Each year, our Board of Directors meets quarterly to review financials and address Writopia Lab’s overall organizational needs. This super smart, dedicated, and skilled group of individuals brings publishing, education, theater arts, fundraising, compliance, legal, and leadership expertise to us on an ongoing basis. We are so grateful to them! We are especially are excited to welcome three new members:
  • Warren Hrung, Chair, Audit Committee
  • John Plummer, Member, Fundraising Committee
  • Amy Smith, Member, Executive Committee

Alumni Spotlight 

Alumni Education Spotlights 

• Congratulations Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwar, Columbia College ’24, Salutatorian, and Writopia’s first alumna that we know of to become a Rhodes Scholar! Her history thesis also won departmental honors as well as the Albert Marion Elsberg Prize.
• Congratulations Maya Mitrasinovic, who also just graduated from Columbia University, after serving as the City News Editor at the University newspaper, The Spectator. What’s next? Congratulations on winning a Fulbright grant to study in Cyprus!
• Congratulations to Jessica Zhao, who had run and contributed political pieces and features to our WriCampia newspaper for years, and who just graduated from George Washington University! She is currently looking for a position on Capitol Hill and we recommend her with the highest praise to anyone looking for a hard-working, super dedicated, and smart staffer!
• Congratulations Sophie Nelson, who just graduated from Oberlin, recently co-authored a philosophy paper, now forthcoming in the Journal of Consciousness Studies.

Alumni Career Spotlights 

• Follow Emma Goldberg and Nico Grant at The New York Times for brilliant features on business and technology, Sam Levine who writes on politics for The Guardian, and Sneha Day, who is an education reporter for the Texas Tribune! We are also excited to share that poet Nora Miller is editor-in-chief of a journal and small press called Ghost Proposal, Maxine Charles is a book editor at Flatiron Books (Macmillan Big 5 publishing), and Hannah Reale is serving as Associate Digital Editor for GBH, Boston’s chapter of NPR.
• And our biggest alumni shoutouts of all go to the creative writing youth development experts in our midst: the amazing Jem Werner, Carly Sorenson, Zoe Donovan, Eunju Namkung, and  Lil Gellman who bring creative writing inspiration and organizational leadership to our workshops and camps throughout the year! 

Special thank you to Matthew Jellison and Literary Submissions Intern Naomi Jeske for researching and curating our monthly submissions opportunities newsletter! Each year, dozens of our students and staff have the added thrill of winning recognition for their dedication and fine skill through these outlets.

Do you have any exciting awards or publication news to share that we didn’t know about?  Fill out this form and we will include it here.

Congratulations to all Writopia writers selected for publication this past school year in this year’s Writopia Publishing Lab’s books.

Connecting Across Cultures: A Collection of Writing by Ten Jewish and Muslim American Teens

• Zoe Becker
• Dania Bressler
• Leila Cisse
• Mahnaz Daud-Basrai
• Heba Elkouraichi
• Zara Hai
• Ilana Horwitz
• Leonid Metlitsky
• Millie Nathanson
• Anniyah Rizvi

“Loved Your Essay!” – The Admissions Team: The Most Fiercely Individualistic College Essays: Second Edition

• Eli Berliner
• Daniela Brillon
• Ella Davis
• Sophia Hall
• Eliana Herzog
• Ailynn O’Neill
• Camil Piperni
• Eli Prager
• Sophia Rubin

Frightopia: The Most Spooky and Surprising Stories by Young Writers

A Wish Upon a Snowflake: Winning Stories of Writopia Lab’s 2023 Winter Story Contest

• Laurel Aronian
• Diego Azar-Wolfe
• Madison Bennett
• Bessa Carabetta
• Hannah Cays
• Mary Chen
• Aashvi Choudhary
• Ariadne Civin
• Felix Del Aguila
• Jean Frye
• Greta Garcia
• Sage Gasson
• Karenna Gutierrez
• Oliver Halkett
• Mika Higgins-Woo
• Prisha Hooda
• Naomi Jeske
• Naomi Katz-Moss
• Amaya Khwaja-Patel
• Poppy LaFrance
• Audrey Lu
• Nathalie Rostek-Weretka
• Isobel Ryu
• Boaz Sager
• Aria Sharma
• Jane Sheldon
• Kaylie Souza
• Margalo Teich
• James Wilson
• Isabella Zhou

Wonders of the Wild: A WriCampia Anthology 

• Layla May Berrada-Riggs
• Ellen Booth
• Imogen Brownas
• Sonali Browning
• Mahnaz Daud
• Madison Dorsey
• Evie Fox
• Astro Getahun
• Adriana Gonzalez
• Asha Harker
• Zoe Husock
• Evie Lee
• Serine Lee
• Rain Lee
• Livi Lesburg
• Taylen Li
• Brian Li
• Jun Lowenhar
• Hunter Maguire
• Lila Melinger
• Sage E. Morgan
• Stella Pham
• Louisa Rosenblatt
• Sophia Rubin
• Maya Savard
• Ruby Sinder
• Isabella Sumner
• Nikolina Trefalt-Liu
• Reva Tucker
• Yanic Valbrune
• Tara Wong

By Matthew Jellison

We were losing literary bingo when the thought hit us.

We were surprised to be losing. After all, Malcolm and I have spent the better part of a decade working in literacy, and Yael about a decade and a half. We are (affectionately speaking) literary nerds. In the office we share, Yael and I often pick up books hanging out on one another’s desks because we’re always curious about what the other is reading; we go on about literature, film, and television. And Malcolm seems to have an endless well of facts about various curiosities at his disposal. Take the one train back from teaching with him at a partner school, for example, and he’ll tell you about the history of a particular subway stop along the way, which then turns into a history of architecture in uptown Manhattan, which then turns into how the whole city is organized. Ask him how he knows so much about that one specific topic he’s gone into with such detail and he’ll likely say, “Oh, I was just wondering about it one day, and so I decided to research.”

All of this goes to say, we know about the world and we know about literature and there’s no reason we should not win a game of literary bingo. But there we were losing.

We were in Ohio at a social gathering for the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Conference last November. We work at Writopia Lab, a national nonprofit whose mission is to foster joy, literacy, and critical thinking in kids and teens of all backgrounds through creative writing. To that end, we build creative writing workshops for kids. They come to us after school and over the weekends at one of our many locations around the country–called labs–where they sit in aged-based groups and work on the writing that’s meaningful to them, all while deepening their knowledge of writing craft through prompts and original writing games, receiving feedback from their instructors, who are themselves professional writer, and forging a community with like-minded youth. For students who can’t come to us, we go to them, bringing our method into classrooms, CBOs, and alternative-to-detention centers for incarcerated youth. Malcolm–a songwriter–runs our songwriting program. I primarily design curriculum and oversee the professional learning of our network of creative writing instructors. Yael runs the show, and along with our CEO Rebecca, seems to effortlessly weave all the strands–from programming to operations, from everyday functioning to ambitious organizational dreaming. All three of us also teach. That’s one thing about our work culture, no matter how senior we become, how much further we root ourselves in the role of administrator, it’s important to us that we never lose sight of what it is to work directly with kids in the room.

This was our first time at the NCTE conference. We had gone to lead a panel on how we teach craft by utilizing original writing games that promote critical thinking and transformation. Besides presenting, we were there to absorb. The conference was filled with panels on almost every aspect of literacy instruction we could imagine. We would fill our days with the individual presentations that interested us the most–giving effective feedback, humanistic teaching practices, professional learning, racial justice in education, teacher burnout, AI in the classroom, and on. Some of the panels left us misty-eyed with their deep commitment and care for youth, some were duds. But we were absorbing everything, navigating the convention halls, stumbling into conversations with English teachers and educators from around the country who all seemed literate, passionate, and quirky. There was a charged energy in those halls that we all felt, and we were eager to bring it back to Writopia.

That Saturday night the energy was depleted though as the other teams were whooping us. “What’s a word that means something different than what it is?” the game leaders asked. “What the hell does that question even mean?” I asked Yael and Malcolm, exasperated. “Write down, ‘gaslighting,’ maybe we’ll get a humor point.” The judges laughed, but no point. Finally, we gave up and moved to conversation.

We all know each other in this very specific way that colleagues at a literacy nonprofit who’ve been teaching together for several years know each other. We get along, we can bounce ideas, we care about the work, and most importantly, we know how to teach together. When we get in the workshop room or a classroom, we have a common language we’ve found over the years, a sense of how we each individually communicate to a room full of kids and how we ourselves can complement each other in that room and reach the kids as a team. We also have an innate understanding as to why the other ones are here, working at this very specific place doing this very specific thing, and what makes them particularly good at this work. We all admire each other’s teaching–or at least I admire Yael and Malcolm’s–it’s a specific type of admiration and knowledge of the other two. 

So it shouldn’t have been any surprise, and maybe it wasn’t, maybe we’d known it about the other two all along but hadn’t connected all the dots, still, sitting in downtown Columbus over a failed literary bingo game, that’s when it really resonated that all of our moms are or were reading teachers, and further, tired and invigorated from panel upon panel of new knowledge and inspiration, we collectively had the deeper realization that we need to get them together for a forum with our instructors.

Months later and it’s Spring. We design a conference of our own for our instructors. Five panels on new ways we can incorporate the hard skills–grammar, mechanics, and usage–into our creative writing workshops organically. We call it “Hard Skills Week.” On Monday, our instructors reflect on how they themselves learned to read and write, before diving into an info session on “the reading wars,” and a discussion on where–as a third space–Writopia fits into this debate. Tuesday’s session is aimed at easing the anxiety around hard skills instruction, and crowdsourcing the soundbites and missives that you can sneak into one-on-one instruction that don’t feel like outright lessons. On Wednesday, we learn new games that use grammar and mechanics as creative generators–embracing style before content, or building new characters out of verbs–rather than saving it for the end of the writing process and then forgetting to teach it entirely (something that I’ve been guilty of in my own teaching). Thursday is a deep look at who made the arbitrary grammar rules in the first place, the gatekeepers, and what their intentions were (hint: to sell books), establishing that a definition of “good” grammar is different for each and every person, that a person’s upbringing and identity are all a part of their own innate sense of grammar, and that we can use a child’s natural grammar to help them find voice. The inspiration and research for all of these sessions originated with the NCTE conference we went to last fall.

Friday’s panel–the final panel of the week–is a talkback with our moms, three outstanding educators with different backgrounds in teaching, but who clearly have a lot in common in their philosophy and approach and care for young people. I’ll stop talking now and let them speak for themselves, except to say this. These three educators, who met for the first time on Zoom in this hour, seemed to have such a common language, and seemed to have a reverence for one another’s ideas and mutual understanding, the kind that Malcolm, Yael, and I developed with each other over the years, but found in mere minutes. That they fell into it so quickly is testament to how deeply they’ve lived and breathed education. All three of us found their words and wisdom inspiring, moving, invigorating, but we’re of course biased. Still, we suspect that they’ll inspire you too. I was also heartened to catch Malcolm’s sensibility in his mother’s honesty, and a bit of Yael’s philosophy in the stories her mom told about surrounding her kids with books. It was a treat to see a bit of my colleagues in their respective moms.

It took a trip to Columbus last November for Yael, Malcolm, and I to come up with a simple, but inspiring idea. It’s important to take the teams that work well and place them in new situations, where they can think about their work and the world a little differently. This can yield innovation, even if that innovation is something as small as, “let’s have our moms hang out and talk about education on Zoom for an hour.” As an organization, we continue to branch out and send our staff to exciting new places. This year, we’ll be back at the NCTE conference, this time in Boston, leading two panels. And if there’s literary bingo happening, you better believe we’ll be there, for whatever comes up, game faces on.

Each July is filled with our longtime deeply meaningful and exciting partnership camps! For a decade now,  Writopia has been running a special writing arts camp for dozens of creative and fun-loving children and teens at Homes for the Homeless’ Saratoga Family Inn. 

Starting seven years ago, we began working with 20-30 wonderful and gifted tweens from low-resourced areas who are selected by The Exam Schools Initiative (ESPI) as they prepare to apply to NYC’s specialized, magnet, highly selective high schools. It is a gift to us to brainstorm and help cultivate original short stories, films, and graphic novels with all of these beautiful young people who deserve all of the enrichment, support, and inspiration in the world. 

ESPI directors recently surveyed 50 of their alumni for feedback on how they may further benefit from ESPI support;  80% of them have named college essay support as a “top need.” So starting this summer, we have had the deep pleasure of working with some of our former middle school ESPI students, now highly engaged college applicants. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Affirmative Action, equal access to college access support systems has become even more urgent.    

According to ESPI Founder, Andy McCord, “For ESPI students the Writopia week is a revelation. For students who have already begun to self-identify as readers and writers the experience is a homecoming. Many of these students continue on their own with Writopia in future years on scholarship. For other students, probably a majority, who are math kids who have never liked ELA, Writopia connects their innate verbal flair with a subject that had often seemed dull and restrictive in school. Our goals are explicitly academic, in that we seek to address the “excellence gap” that keeps many Black, Latinx, and low-income students out of the pipelines to schools like Hunter, Stuyvesant, and Bronx Science, but we find that a creative approach like Writopia is essential across disciplines to build deeper motivations that can underlie achievement at high levels as our students progress through school. At an organizational level, ESPI’s partnership with Writopia has been a model.”

By Rebecca Wallace-Segall

Within this essay, I  examine the ongoing youth literacy crisis in New York City and, along with it, two long-standing, opposing education policies—progressive and traditional—that have sought to address it. I argue that resisting dogmatic adherence to one or the other of these approaches, coupled with teacher-centered professional development opportunities that emphasize educators’ reconnection to the personal experience of writing, will improve classroom writing education goals. Over the course of a decade and a half, I co-designed a new educational framework that combines and elaborates upon the strengths of both approaches; over the past year, I co-designed a teacher-centered professional development opportunity for New York City public school teachers that allows them the space to apply that framework to their own writing and, ultimately, grow as both writers and writing educators. Inspired by John Kingdon’s open policy window theory, as a new administration took office in the city in 2022, I researched and connected with old and new contacts that lead a like-minded policy community within the Department of Education in order to implement and test this professional development project. In this paper, I imagine a city in which all writing teachers have access to joyful, teacher-centered writing workshops of their own, and the potential impacts this would have on youth; I suggest that building bridges between educators and writing experts, between progressive and traditional educators, and from high- to low-performing schools, may improve literacy education for public school youth in New York City.

Click here to read the full essay.

Click here for more information about how we can best serve your school.

Congratulations! Rebecca Wallace-Segall, Chief Executive Officer, published the Writopia founding and impact story in the Village Voice in 2022 and co-authored an article on partnering for literacy impact in the Afterschool Matters Journal. She is completing her Masters in Urban Education Policy at CUNY Graduate Center this winter. Yael Schick, Co-Associate Executive Director, 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. Jeremy Wallace-Segall, Chief Operations Officer, completed a Certificate in Business Excellence at Columbia Business School‘s Social Leaders Program for Nonprofit Professionals. Janelle Williams, Director of Programs and Outreach, had her novel, Gone Like Yesterday, accepted for publication by Tiny Reparations Books, forthcoming in February 2023. Rita Feinstein, D.C. Regional Manager, had her narrative poetry compilation, Everything Is Real, published through Brain Mill Press. John Manuel Arias’ debut novel, Where There Was Fire, was accepted for publication by Flatiron Books. Léna Roy, Bianca Turetsky, Rebecca Wallace-Segall, and Janelle Williams, whose proposed panel was accepted to the Association for Writing Programs conference forthcoming in Seattle in 2023.  Rebecca Wallace-Segall’s session, co-proposed with Susan Matloff-Nieves, the Vice President of Innovation and Justice at Goddard Riverside, was accepted to the New York State Network for Youth Success conference. Special thank you to the Pinkerton Foundation for their ongoing commitment to extending Writopia’s literacy impact throughout the broader after-school educational landscape. Léna Roy, Director of Teen Programs, and Rob Roy, Director of Program Operations, launched Writopia’s first university-based residential program, Advanced Writing Seminar, at The New School in 2022. Matthew Jellison, Senior Manager of Education, and Elsa Bermúdez, Los Angeles Regional Manager and WriCampia Co-Director, ran a free summer program for Portland Public Schools students. Bianca Turetsky became our Associate Director of Programs. Tom Flynn became our Director of Business Operations and Development. Will Bond became our Manager of Digital Media and Communications. Jocelyn Gottschalk became our Senior HR Manager. Malcolm Knowles became a Program Manager. Tasnim Hussain became a Program Manager. Shanille Martin became our Registration and Debate Program Lead. Michaela Florio became a Project Manager. And a special congratulations to Danielle Sheeler, Co-Associate Executive Director, for the birth of her first baby, Maya Fae!

Instructors’ 2022 Publications Amy Dupcak Prose poem published in The Blue Mountain Review’s September print/digital issue. Poem forthcoming in the American Writers Review’s “The End or the Beginning?” themed print issue, published by San Fedele Press. Published the personal essay “My Own Nirvana” in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Newly acting Editor-in-Chief for the literary journal Cagibi, and is currently reading, editing, and organizing for their winter issue, which will go live on January 17, 2023. Andres Vaamonde Phillip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University, January 2023. Carly Sorenson Blog Writer for the volunteer- and queer-led Love Wins Food Pantry.  Chava Pearl Lansky Graduated from the CUNY Graduate Center’s M.A. in Biography and Memoir. Began writing a monthly cooking column in Dance Magazine, where she features artists’ favorite home recipes and approaches to cooking. Christina Poulin Published four articles in Mochi Magazine:  “Obake Stories: The Clash Between Superstition and Religion.” “Rolls off the Tongue: The Trendiness of Asian Snacks.”  “5 Things You Should Consider Before Taking a Gap Year.” “All That Glitters: The Owner of Magpie Reveals Small Business Secrets.” Cloe Gentile Reyes Published poems and prose in Brown Sugar Lit. Presented doctoral research & writing at the International Alliance for Women in Music 2022 conference.  Awarded the Judith Tick Award for Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies by the Society for American Music for her research on reggaeton, Puerto Rican culture, rap, fashion, and racialized femininity.  Di Jayawickrema     Published in The Pinch and New Delta Review and had a zine out with One Minute Press, which is a new flash zine for Asian diaspora writers. Fiction Fellow at Kundiman. https://dijayawickrema.com/writing/ Liqing Xu Partook in “An Evening of Commissioned Monologues” at the Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. Selected to be a Many Voices Fellow. Selected to partake in The Orchard Project. Had a workshop production through Second Stage. Lizz Mangan Their show “Good Morning! A Preschool Play” was featured in the 3rd Annual Hartford Fringe Festival in October 2022. Michaela Florio Pushcart Nominee for nonfiction piece “The Sanctuary.” “The Sanctuary” in Quarter After Eight Volume 27. Rita Feinstein Published poems in Salamander Magazine, Alien Magazine, and Beloit Poetry Journal. Flash fiction published in The Normal School. Sanina Clark Published a Q & A with Kekla Magoon in Publishers Weekly. Published a review of “Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere” in A Gathering of the Tribes Online Magazine. A Gathering of Tribes Online Magazine Review for “Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere”. Hosted the Black Dawn Series Launch w. Firestorm Books. Series Editor for AK Press; accepting speculative fiction submissions for the Black Dawn series. Sophia N. Lee Debuted her first picture book titled Holding On with Atheneum in August 2022. It is the first Filipino picture book to be published by Simon & Schuster. Her second book Lolo’s Sari-sari Store, also with Atheneum, has been announced on Publishers Weekly. It’s slated for release in the summer of 2023. https://linktr.ee/sophianleewrites

Welcome our 2022 New Full-Time Staff Carly Sorenson, Instructor and Registration Associate Christina McDowell, Registration and Outreach Coordinator; Instructor Lizz Mangan, Private Sessions Coordinator Jem Werner, Registration Associate John Manuel Arias, Registration Coordinator Matthew Wong, IT Specialist Peter Quinn-Jacobs, Operations, Registration, and RPG Coordinator

Partnership Highlight We have been serving juniors and seniors at WHEELS, Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School. This year their team has been internally measuring our impact on 80 of their writers. We are thrilled to start sharing their early findings with you!

Writopia Publishing Lab Highlights Rueda y Rueda: the 2022 Homes for the Homeless Anthology. Learn more about our decade-long relationship with HFH! Hello From Here: A Celebration of Asian American Identity, a book filled with postcard letters and illustrations created by Asian American kids from all around the country. Produced by a group of Writopia teens funded by Riley’s Way. Food, Memories, and Recipes from the Heart: An ICHS Cookbook, a collaboration with International Community High School celebrating the cuisine and voices of young writers in the Bronx. Twilight Time: Poems About Dreams and Fantasies, a collection of Writopia’s youngest writers’ poetry.  Rituals and Traditions: A WriCampia Anthology, produced by our WriCampia CITs.

Specialty Program Highlights WriCampia Served 200 kids at our 11-day sleepaway camp in the Poconos. Enrollment is opening soon for our August 14th-August 25 2023 session! Two films made in the Filmmaking Track at WriCampia were selected for the New York Short Film Festival. Congratulations to Sam Stearns for INERTIA and Castle Bloodgood and Moon Emigli for Worm On A Genius String!

Special thank you to Alex Tlatelpa, our Accounting and Operations Specialist, for bringing Mabel to WriCampia this year!

Worldwide Plays Festival Produced 32 short plays live in Bryant Park.

Watch the plays from the festival in the playlist below!

Missed the student accomplishment newsletter in June? Check it out and let us know if you have more news to share!  During these difficult financial times, our team continues to do great work. Please help us stay intact and continue to have impact into the new year. On behalf of our Board of Directors and our entire staff, thank you and happy holidays!

Support Writopia Lab

Our graduating seniors wrote dozens of individualistic, beautifully-crafted college essays at Writopia this year that helped college admissions teams get to know—and feel deeply connected to—them as people. I am excited to share two essays below because of the creative format the writers chose to employ and because of the high level of personal reflection and analysis they shared. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as they enjoyed writing them!   

Eliana’s Essay

“So, Eliana. What’s your sustained investigation? What’s the meaning behind this painting?” Ms. Fallon, my art teacher asks. It’s our monthly in-class critique, and it’s my turn to present my project. “Well, it’s a long story…” I begin to respond, reflecting over the moments that led me to where I was. I contain a multitude of histories and stories that no one can see, but that I feel deeply. These histories help shape who I am.  

I’m seven and visiting my maternal grandmother’s family in Finland. I learn how to play Old Maid from my great aunt and greet my cousin’s cows, feeding them chocolate chip cookies.  

I’m ten and my sister and I are visiting our paternal grandparents in Brussels for the first time without my parents. It is thrilling to be in a foreign country without our parents. We visit Le Grand Place and its museums, explore castles, play Rummikub, and light Shabbat candles.  

I’m thirteen and eating Sunday brunch with family and friends the day after my bat mitzvah. My father’s family is there, the ones who escaped Poland in the war and immigrated to Venezuela. Although I am tired from the beautiful chaos of the previous day, I feel encompassed by the love of all those who traveled from near and far to support me as I read Torah. Everyone speaks Spanish and English while eating bagels and arepas and telling me how much I’ve grown: “¿Me recuerdas? I changed your diapers!” I feel incredibly fortunate to have my father’s Venezuelan dishes and family every Sunday, allowing me to connect with my heritage through delicious food.  

I’m fourteen and walking the streets of Jerusalem with my family. I hear Hebrew all around me and notice Judaica stores on every third street. I visit the Western Wall and feel the 2000 years of history. I stand on the roof of a citadel and view the city around me, feeling connected to my heritage. I buy a necklace in Tzfat, which I will wear practically daily for the next few years. 

I’m sixteen and, while exploring ideas for paintings, I ask my grandpa, the lifelong educator, to tell me more about his side of the family. In response, I get a 100-page packet. Looking at my ancestors’ names, it hits me once again that barely over 150 years in the past, my ancestors were enslaved Africans. Some days later, my mom and I are eating lunch and processing how racial justice has improved since then, yet how much more progress is necessary. My grandpa, a 78-year-old Black man, a retired teacher and school superintendent, had just moved to New Hampshire for the summer, out of fear of both COVID-19 and getting shot by the police.   

I’m seventeen and creating my final portfolio for AP art. I paint the farm and Le Grand Place. I paint the streets of Tsfat and arepas. I paint a Torah in my arms and draw the Lodz ghetto. I paint dark hands in chains and a Bantu mask, learning more about African art in the process. When I present my work, my classmates are quiet, ask many questions, and say, “We didn’t know your family was so diverse.” I shrug it off. I pass; this is who I am. Just because my heritage isn’t visible at first glance doesn’t make it any less meaningful. Through my art, I can share my story and feel a little less unseen. Art has helped me feel more comfortable discussing my identity and enhanced my connection with my family. I now understand the power of sharing who I am with the world. When someone shares who they are, the world becomes a more incredible place.  

There is loneliness in feeling unseen, but there is fulfillment in knowing who I am and all that my ancestors have overcome to lead me to where I am now. 

Ailynn’s Essay

Two Minutes Till: I’m going to need full focus for what I’m about to do. I can feel the presence of my group mates in the room, even though I’m not looking at them. People give off energy, I think, whether they mean to or not, and I can feel theirs almost as strongly as my own. 

Noah is pacing, Jack is fiddling with his inhaler, Charlie is staring off into space, and Tomoko has mysteriously disappeared. An unspoken understanding passes between me and Noah: we are both terrified, but we can’t show it because that will make it real.

One Minute Till: We form a huddle, like a football team. Music can, in fact, be an athletic endeavor, especially in a chamber group. Everyone must be aware of each other, simply through peripheral vision and non-verbal communication. 

Noah tells us to try to just have fun. I translate: Play with wild abandon. We nod. This piece is so dramatic, we silently assure each other, it almost plays itself. Yet we are keenly aware of the lack of control we really have out there. A violin might fall out of tune. Someone might miss a measure. The panic might swallow us up. 

Twenty Seconds Till: We line up. The walls begin to close in, but I push them away and quiet my breathing. I don’t look up at the faces of the professors and students in the balconies, in case they can read my thoughts. I’ve had years of practice, but the better I am, the higher my expectations of myself are.

Time’s up: We bow, our voices reedy as we announce our names and what we’re playing: Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in A minor, first movement. I sit down, smooth my purple dress out on the piano bench. I know this. Charlie looks scared, but determined. I nod and give her an assuring wink. We know this. 

I start my opening solo, letting my fingers linger lovingly on the keys before sound emerges. The cello part dances alongside me, her notes sometimes complementing mine and sometimes clashing purposefully. The others join us, sometimes in unison, sometimes forging their own paths. It feels like the first time I’m hearing it, getting lost in the beauty and emotion behind every phrase.

This is the moment I usually start to unravel. But I don’t. Instead, it’s as if the chaos of my life comes together. I know who I am, I know what I’m doing, I know why I like it. This is for me alone, it’s both this beautiful exploration into myself and an external break from the hectic nature of life and everything I’m interested in; it encompasses my love for history, my need for non-verbal communication, my desire to share with others something that is personal, precious, and instant. It speaks to my ability to empathize and internalize feelings, my love of good stories. Music ties my entire life together. It creates a bond between things that usually feel separate and makes me feel like a full, whole person.

Seven minutes later: This is what it’s supposed to feel like. Applause erupts around me from all sides. Full of adrenaline, I bow. The walls are where they are supposed to be. A light feeling grows in my chest–We did it. And I would do it all over again, just to feel that infinite, temporary joy for a few more minutes. It’s the first time I haven’t performed just to get through the piece. Instead, the melodies flowed through my veins and the world of the piece fully enveloped me in its arms. I smiled as I hit the last note. The breath I let out now is not one of relief, but wistfulness at having to leave the scene of this beautiful creation. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. I feel grounded, ready to take on the world.

by Bianca Turetsky

At our last virtual retreat we took an exercise from Brene Brown’s book, Dare to Lead, and through the process of elimination discovered what our core values truly are. In the busyness of day to day life, particularly these past two years, it’s not a question we often give ourselves the time to dig into. What really matters to me? These central beliefs guide us in both our personal and professional lives because as Brene points out, we only have one set of values. A lot of unhappiness and unease creep in when one’s values at work don’t align with their values in their personal and home lives.

We shut off our cameras and individually pondered over an extensive alphabetical list of values ranging from accountability to leadership to wisdom. We started by picking ten values, which was challenging enough, and then reluctantly culled our list down to two values. The values that act as our North Star, much like how I describe a log line in a novel to my novel writing workshop. Everyone’s values were different. It was hard tossing out creativity, community, success, and learning. I felt tremendous guilt crossing out family. But for the sake of the exercise, I did it. 

I was surprised at what I was left with: 

Joy and Curiosity 

Upon more reflection I realized that curiosity and joy felt like umbrella terms for many of the other values in my more expansive list. For me, joy includes humor, connection, well-being, optimism and love. Curiosity encompasses creativity, learning, and flexibility. When I looked at the two words again through this lens, they felt true to me.

I have always loved how joy was one of the first words of Writopia’s mission statement: Writopia Lab fosters joy, literacy, and critical thinking in children and teens from all backgrounds through creative writing. If you are in a place of joy, you are more open to learning and community and growing. You are not coming from a place of fear. I’ve always tried to take a Marie Kondo approach to life – does the way I spend my days bring me joy? Because of course as we all know, the way you spend your days is the way you spend your life. Writing brings me joy. Working with kids brings me joy. Helping young writers tell their stories brings me joy. And seeing the joy these writers experience when they write a sentence or story they are proud of makes me feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to put this value into practice. 

I lead my workshops coming from a place of curiosity. I genuinely want to learn more about who these writers are and how I can guide them to tell their truths. I’m curious, what story are you destined to tell? Through our strengths based approach, constructive feedback is offered in the form of questions: I’m curious, how does your character feel at this moment? I’m curious, what does this magical forest smell like? I’m curious, what inspired this hilarious talking cat? I’m curious, I’m curious… 

Even in her 90s, my grandmother is still the most dynamic person in the room. She has an insatiable curiosity that has never diminished. She is always learning new things, meeting new people, asking questions and actively listening to the answers. Not surprisingly, she was a beloved second grade teacher. A smaller group of us did this exercise a few years ago and I found myself with two different core values (“making a difference” and “creativity”). These are values that still strongly resonate with me. They definitely made my top 10 list this year. But a lot has changed in the world in a few years and I think when things seem really hard, I am actively leaning more towards joy. When the news seems confusing and scary, I am actively leaning towards curiosity. I plan to do the activity again in the future to see what resonates with me at that moment in my life. It’s exciting to know that even as adults we’re ever evolving. I hope to still be chasing joy with our young writers. And I’m curious to meet my future self and find out. 

by Madeline Taylor & Kimberly Faith Waid 

At our national staff retreat in 2019, our full-time staff came together to focus on teen leadership and the ways we could empower our young writers within our community and beyond. We’d run programs in the past, and we were ready to take it to a new level: to guide writers to contribute their ideas, help produce events, and be the voice of the messaging that, after all, defines their passions. Our discussion centered primarily around the needs of our teen community; many of our teens had been involved in Writopia for many years and were ready for a new experience, in the midst of a world full of new challenges. We wanted to center our programs around our young writers’ passions and ideas so that we could provide the scaffolding and tools while allowing them the freedom to express their creativity in new, impactful ways.

Our Enviroactivism club began after a teen entered the workshop space devastated by the impact of climate change and that conversation drew compassion and concern for the room at large. It became clear that this was a conversation these teens would like to be having but also a concern they were motivated to pursue actionable change to achieve. The group is student-led, instructor-mentored, and aims to empower kids and teens to use their voice to become leaders and environmental activists in their own neighborhoods. Originally bi-weekly meetings, the structure expanded to a monthly event series. In the past year, participants have brainstormed advocacy efforts to raise awareness around climate change, written thank you letters to firefighters and advocates, written urgent letters to representatives and corporate social responsibility managers, and engaged in the replies! They’ve probed outside of typical “environmental stresses” and explored urban planning and housing for the homeless with a guest speaker who educated them on the intersection of public health and sustainability. These topics informed them as citizens who will care for the health of any city they inhabit. Local participation and advocacy is vital and how wonderful that it was born from their creative writing workshop where they can tackle words and ideas without censorship but rather with wholehearted empathy and cultural consciousness. 

One of the best things about teen leadership is watching it grow and evolve as the teens themselves grow up from passionate youth into smart, strong, well-equipped young adults. A favorite example is the way that Writopia’s LGBTQ+ community has flourished thanks to teen leaders who committed to forging a space not just for themselves, but for their whole Writopia family. During the summer of 2017 at WriCampia (our sleepaway camp), we started Plus, a discussion/writing/hangout space for LGBTQ+ campers and anyone who wanted to have a place to learn more about gender and sexuality in a friendly, low-key environment. Over the next several years, we grew beyond WriCampia and into our school-year programming as well. For Pride 2019, a particularly significant year that marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, we ran three different programs to reach more young writers than ever. From a queer movie night with poster-making, to an art and writing field trip at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, to the NYC Pride March itself, Writopia teens created powerful, fun, thoughtful spaces. 

As we reflected on our queer community’s evolution and the growth of our Enviroactivism group, we saw that in order to truly serve our kids, our role as educators must be to teach kids the toolkit they need to empower themselves; it’s incredible to watch how these empowered and equipped kids can take those tools to lift the needs of others as well.

A year after our initial conversations, when we gathered for our 2020 staff retreat, we had presentations prepared on the teen engagement programs we had started over the past year. Our retreat, however, turned into a huge planning session for Writopia Lab’s transition to online programming, which had to happen fast, as more cities started shelter-in-place orders. A few weeks later, once we had moved workshops on to Zoom and were getting in the groove of this strange time, we had a moment to stop and remember our teen leaders. Our next challenge: how could we continue to support our teen leaders and activists via online channels? How would Covid-19 affect these kids’ goals and plans?

It didn’t come as any surprise when we realized that these young leaders had continued their projects and started new, timely projects, all through their determination and hard work. Turning the Page, a group dedicated to writing about and destigmatizing mental health issues, has continued to meet every weekend; they are creating an anthology as well as sharing ideas for mental health support on their Instagram. The Next Chapter, a teen-led gun control advocacy group, continued to meet once a week to discuss future projects, including their involvement with the “Enough” plays project. They’re also accepting submissions for a zine about gun violence. Diatom, our new teen-run literary magazine, took the initiative to write acceptance letters and start curating their new issue, outside of meetings led by Writopia Staff. In our debate club, our older teens who are nationally ranked debaters are working with us to develop a new debate culture and format that goes beyond argument and rebuttal and celebrates problem solving as well. Enviroactivism has met monthly to process the impact of the virus on issues they’d covered prior like housing and climate. They’ve collaborated on earth day social media posts, a recipe exchange of common pantry items, and they traveled the Earth while staying home this month thanks to a Zoom viewing party of Our Planet. Our kids had the tools they needed to maintain their activism even — especially — during the most challenging time many of them have ever faced.

Covid-19 showed us clearly that the future of youth activism programs is dependent on our efforts as instructors and mentors to be alert to the questions of young people, reminding them that their voice is needed and deserves to be heard. In a time when young people are feeling weighed down by anxieties about the future, it’s vital that we foster literacy through creating spaces for writers to engage with their ideas, beliefs, and passions beyond the written page. Collectively, all of these programs will bring confidence and deep awareness to our young writers. Now is the time to hear and celebrate their passions, angers, and curiosities. Our present and our future will be filled with their voices.

It’s the first day of the staff retreat, 2020, March 12 to be exact. We are in the middle of nowhere in a beautiful retreat center in Connecticut, trees starting to bloom, purple crocuses pushing up their heads, reminding us that spring indeed does follow winter. COVID-19 still seems far enough away, and the impulse to come together as a team is strong enough that we haven’t canceled. We’re a small, close-knit group. Still, one of our regional managers is Zooming in because of a preexisting condition, and our team from Los Angeles has flown into the city and then turned back around and flown back home. There is passion to be together along with tension around what is to come.

We use staff retreats to look at the big picture — how can we further engage kids and our communities, how can we reach and impact more people? Last year was about meeting the demand for more Youth Leadership. This year’s retreat will be about our new Writopia Publishing Lab platform. During the retreat, we will also carve out time to develop our own writing, workshopping memoir, one act plays, poetry, and fiction.

But after the first day of the retreat, we sleep uneasily because we have heard about so many more school closures in the New York Metro Area. In the morning, we change our agenda and schedule. There is no longer space and time for big-picture thinking and lovely writing breaks. We need to immediately move from long-term visionary thinking and creative reinvigoration to short-term organizational crisis planning. 

We come together in a circle, some of us teary-eyed, everyone wanting to be part of the solution. We realize that this might be the last time together in a physical space for a long time. We realize that we won’t be with our writers in our cozy writing labs for months to come. What will this mean for those of our kids who rely on us as their main social outlet? What will it mean for our children from low-income backgrounds who don’t have laptops and reliable internet at home — and whose families may not be able to stay home with them and support homeschooling, or would face greater financial stress? What will it mean for the viability of Writopia Lab as an organization, and for the livelihood of the 27 people sitting in the room together?

We turn our agenda and attention for the day on moving to an on-line platform so that we can not only stay afloat, but also serve our mission of fostering joy, literacy and critical thinking through creative writing to kids and teens of all backgrounds. How will this work? Feeding off each other’s commitment and drive, we break into small brainstorming groups— the tech and systems people in one group, the programs people divided into others—to re-imagine and design an entire new Writopia world. When we come together a few hours later, we understand that, together as a team, we have the potential to not only keep our community intact, but also to reach new people across the country and even the world — especially those who don’t have access to a Writopia Lab brick-and-mortar lab. Zoom is going to  become our new best friend. 

A few hours later, we hear that New York City and NY State have both declared states of emergency. It won’t be long before the New York City public schools close. We have accomplished all that we can together, now it’s time to get ready to put it into practice. We pack up and leave that night, a day early. We have too much to do. We need to prepare our homes for long-term social distancing and sheltering-in-place. And we need to prepare for the immediate learning and launching of the new Writopia Lab era: online, emotionally connecting, intellectually stimulating writing workshops.    

Two weeks later, we have worked with almost 900 kids and teens across the country, and have received just as many warm smiles and relieved faces. We have loaned out laptops to those in need, extended our sliding-scale fee structure to the online space, and have developed a new a la carte online program that makes Writopia Lab especially financially accessible to those in need. We haven’t figured out how to reach every student we know; but we are reaching more and more each day.  

Two weeks later, most of us are in states that have shelter-in-place orders, and the number of those who are affected by the Novel Coronavirus has increased tenfold. We have learned of several Writopia Lab students from schools we taught at who are diagnosed with COVID-19, and some Writopia Lab students from our labs living with ill parents, fighting for their lives against COVID-19. While most of our community is healthy at home, self-quarantining without symptoms, we are listening to each other, supporting, inspiring, distracting, and entertaining each other — coming together as  an unbreakable community of creative writers and thinkers.

Two weeks later, despite the dramatic, successful move to online workshopping, we are financially hurting like so many others. But we will continue to grow and connect, finding new ways to be together and accessing the best of ourselves, even when we are processing the chaos around us. We need our creativity —  whether it be expressed through writing, dance, music, or art to connect us as humans, and we are blessed to be able to serve in this way.

Thank you to our full-time team, our instructors, our writers, and our writers’ parents for not only bearing with us, but for participating in this life-affirming movement, and for continuing to bring on the bloom of spring.