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 …
Student Publication Highlights 2020-2021 Abey Weitzman won a Scholastic Silver Medal for his senior portfolio, “Disability.” Watch his powerful graduation speech below in which he mentions Writopia Lab. Analia Rivera had a piece accepted to Alphabet Soup. Carol Brahm-Robin published a review in Pank. Jordan Ferdman won the National YoungArts Foundation Merit Winner in Writing: Creative …
By April, the grueling 2020-2021 college admissions process will have to come to an end, with over five million high seniors finding out which colleges have accepted them during one of the most disheartening application years in decades. And just then, as the trees begin to blossom and the Covid-19 vaccine supply begins to meet …
This year’s results for the Regional Scholastic Writing Awards are intended to be announced in most regions on January 28th, 2021. Many of our writers ages 13-18 will find out that their pieces were honored with honorable mentions, silver keys, and/or gold keys! We are so, so happy for all of our teens who received …
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: …
Growing up, Passover (Pesach) overtook the spring curriculum in my school. Weeks were spent studying the Haggadah, creating our own, learning the laws and practices that had been passed down through generations. “The most important thing is to tell the story of the Exodus,” I remember one teacher explaining. “Even if one is having a …
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 …
The Horror! : On Encouraging Young Writers to Dig into Fear by Jacquelyn Stolos, Program Coordinator
As a new staff member at Writopia, I was thrilled to spend two weeks at WriCampia teaching, thinking, and exploring alongside the world’s most literary campers last August–what a dream! And more, I had the opportunity to fully embrace the eerie atmosphere of our home-away-from-home in the misty Poconos and lead a new horror elective, …
This has been such an incredible school year at Writopia across the country! We served over 5,000 invigorated kids and teens in safe space, censorship-free writing workshops at our labs, in schools, in partnership with community-based organizations, and at our sleepaway camp. Every day, we witnessed the key to effective writing instruction: inspiring student investment. Dozens …
My bus ride to work, down Columbus Avenue in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is frequently crowded with parents and young children en route to school. I love when I end up on the same bus as one particular mom and her two elementary-school-aged daughters. As the bus bumps along in its morning daze, …