Written by Lena Roy and Peter Quinn-Jacobs

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 lovely to be recognized of course, but more important is claiming our seats as writers in the spirit of community rather than competition. I’m here with my esteemed colleague Peter Quinn-Jacobs, who wears many hats including heading up our Writopia Scholastic team. As our representative affiliate for the awards, he is in charge of overseeing multiple areas including adjudication for the DC Metro Area, and ceremonies in DC and NYC’s Northern suburbs, the H2H region. He is also integral to the inner workings of Writopia as a whole! But back to Scholastic —  Peter, we have some celebrations coming up, don’t we?

PETER: Why yes Lena, we do indeed! We’ll be celebrating teen writing in my hometown of Washington DC on Sunday, March 9th, and then I’ll be traveling to Westchester for the ceremony in your neck of the woods. I’m excited! It’s a wonderful opportunity to come together as a community.

LENA: We encourage our teen Writopians to practice submitting their writing, and Scholastic is a great way to do that. It’s an opportunity to put ourselves out there! After all, we apply to all sorts of things as we grow — summer programs, colleges, jobs — so tell me Peter, what was Writopia representation like this year at the Scholastic Awards?

PETER: I am super proud of all of our Writopians who submitted this year. Over sixty of our writers earned recognition, many of them winning multiple awards! Some received honorable mentions, some received silver keys, and more than twenty received Gold Keys— including four senior portfolios!

LENA: Yes! Seniors Sophia Alvarez, Arava Chaiken, Sydney Davis, and Tara Prakash all received Gold Keys for their Portfolios! And what about American Voice Nominations?

PETER: Oh right! American Voice Nominations are extremely competitive, with only five works being chosen from each region being chosen among thousands of submissions. This year, two Writopians have the honor of their work receiving a nomination. Tara Prakash from DC and Mia Bornstein from the H2H region each had a piece selected.

LENA: I know both of them worked so hard on those pieces. Being nominated is huge by itself! We’re so thrilled for all our writers who completed pieces, revised, and put themselves out there this year in various writing recognition programs. Onward and upward!

Writopians Represent! (If you received an award and you are not listed here, please let us know!)

SENIOR PORTFOLIOS

• GOLD
  • Sophia Alvarez
  • Aravah Chaiken
  • Sydney Davis
  • Tara Prakash
• Silver
  • Teddy Lykouretzos
• Honorable Mention
  • Bee Kanofsky

REGIONAL KEYS

GOLD

• Mia Bornstein
• Sophie Chen
• Isabella Choi
• Nell Choi
• Beatrix Gruber
• Rory Frasch
• Michaela Frey
• Naomi Jeske
• Bee Kanofsky
• Emilia Kiciloff
• Brian Li
• Charlotte Long
• Jun Lowenhar
• Isabelle Oh
• Ruth Pournelle
• Tara Prakash
• Cordelia Scoville
• Lillian Weiss

SILVER

• Sophia Alvarez
• Izzy Ardizzoni
• Zoe Becker
• Claire Breslow
• Sonali Browning
• Aravah Chaiken
• Nell Choi
• Blake Feinstein
• Michaela Frey
• Sofia Hernandez
• Arielle Horace
• Bee Kanofsky
• Brandon Kim
• Naomi Jeske
• Aisling Joyce
• Serine Lee
• Jun Lowenhar
• Mai McKelvey-Pham
• Netta Nov
• Isabella Oh
• Tara Prakash
• Eliza Rorech
• Angie Rubenstein
• Cordelia Scoville
• Lili Sella
• Yanic Valbrun
• Jo Wallace-Segall
• Maxanne Wallace-Segall
• Chloe Yaeger

HONORABLE MENTION

• Emily Appleyard
• Izzy Ardizzoni
• Sonali Browning
• Aravah Chaiken
• William Chen
• Blake Feinstein
• Sarah Froman
• Ananya Govind
• Beatrix Hatch
• Gabe Horowitz
• Hayden Ingberg
• Naomi Jeske
• Aisling Joyce
• Emilia Kiciloff
• Max Lally
• Serine Lee
• Brian Li
• Berrit Nordlander-Borowski
• Anne Pospisil
• Tara Prakash
• Viraaj Raofield
• Nina Rogers
• Eliza Rorech
• Angie Rubenstein
• Cordelia Scoville
• Lili Sella
• Eden Sharon
• Ryan Tang
• Zsuzsa Teleki
• Hugh Vickery
• Maxanne Wallace-Segall
• Chloe Yaeger

Written by Tasnim Hussain, Program Manager at Writopia Lab

On February 18th, 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 other, their friends, and their families. The chatbox and Zoom room were filled with supportive comments, excited reactions, and pleas to keep reading. 

Congratulations to the 15 contributors who read and shared their pieces at this event!  

• Nefeli Antonogiannakis
• Ethan Boies
• Levon Broderick
• Zachary Cho
• Liam Chung
• Riya Doshi
• Olivia Jones
• Naomi Katz-Moss
• Ella Kinsbruner
• Henry Lomma
• Teal Meyers
• Eva Riegel
• Peyton Schleef
• Makela Shen
• Devin Wong
• William Zhang

The celebratory reading marks the end of the 2024 Halloween Story contest season. But how did we get here? Well, this past October, we launched a call to submissions for stories, poems and comics inspired by Halloween-themed prompts. We were met with so much excitement, joy and creativity from the community and received over 180 submissions. All 180 submissions were read and adjudicated by a team of ten published writers, authors, and playwrights. 

The adjudication process led to a stunning collection of 72 selected stories that were edited, then produced into a beautifully designed anthology. Each and every story in the anthology is thought provoking, hair-raising, and spooktacular in its own way. 

Congratulations to all the selected published contributors, and the winners of the Halloween story contest (in bold). 

• Axel Ku, 6
• Ethan Boies, 7
• Azali Arif, 7
• Brooke Asmar, 7
• Ella F. Kinsbruner, 8
• Eva Riegel, 8
• Emilia Rachel Wong, 8
• Emi Kim, 9
• Levon Broderick, 9 
• Josephine Cho, 9
• Emica Mehicic, 9
• Charlotte Kim, 9
• Anna Baranchuk, 9
• Nora Loriferne, 9
• Lily Volpp, 9
• Boyana Dyankova, 9
• Naomi Katz-Moss, 9
• Astrid Chou, 9
• Robin Crosswhite-Evans, 10
• Jenna Laux, 10
• Nathan Fong, 10
• Soniya Chada, 10
• Mina Parry, 10
• Viola Gallagher, 10
• Astrid Fleischer, 10
• Sebastian Gonzalez, 10
• Zachary Cho, 11
• Theo Kern, 11
• Liam Chung, 11
• Leela Fleck, 11
• Nirali Yedendra, 11
• Nefeli Antonogiannakis, 11
• Marion Wang, 11
• Parker Allen, 11
• Chelsea Panfilova, 12
• Casimir Sifton, 12
• Dean Kedem, 12
• Carter Wang, 12
• Myra Virnig, 12
• Olivia Jones, 12
• Anabelle Swidler, 12
• Evamary Varghese, 12
• Andi Forte, 12
• William Zhang, 12
• Juliana Norinsberg, 12
• Cleo Takesh Mohseni, 12
• Riya Doshi, 13
• Chloe Madison Frazier, 13
• Kian Darvishian, 13
• Devin Wong, 13
• Ellen Booth, 13
• Theo Scoblic, 13
• Makela S., 14
• Teal Meyers, 14
• Peyton Schleef, 14
• Brianna Su, 14
• Jonathan Zhang, 14
• Alma Metlitsky, 14
• Matteo Brigandi, 14
• Henry Lomma, 14
• Niki Takesh Mohseni, 14
• Maya Daniels, 15
• Mira Snider, 15
• Greta Garcia, 15
• Ava Grunberg, 15
• Julia Rosen, 15
• Sonali Browning, 15
• Sabrina Claire Kim, 15 
• Story Hadfield, 16
• Sophia Patz, 16
• Emily Dong, 16
• Quinn Stromberg, 16

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Written by Elsa Bermudez, Rita Feinstein, Tasnim Hussain, and Matthew Jellison

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On Superbowl Sunday, Writopia Lab NYC and DC ran our 8th annual essay conference! Writers from grades 7th-12th participated in both our NYC and DC conference, and some writers even flew in from California and Toronto to participate in our NYC conference! Their excitement and dedication to critical thinking were already evident in their essay submissions, and they went above and beyond to be part of one of our favorite annual events. 

When we opened our call for submissions in December, we asked writers to submit essays that take risks, either in content, format, or both. Young writers really took to the challenge and submitted surprising, interesting, empathetic, compassionate, philosophical, and risky essays, leading to discussions at our conference about culture, gender, love, philosophy, and how to protect humanity and the world we inhabit. We curated their essays into panels that tied their essays together and, after they presented the abstracts and excerpts, asked each essayist questions that led us into a discussion about their topics. Essayists also answered questions presented to their whole panel about their connected theme. 

Writers spoke eloquently, with grace and respect for their fellow writers. They impressed us with how they rose up to the challenge of answering questions extemporaneously in front of a crowd of their peers, family, and friends. We opened up questions to the audience, which continued panel discussions further and allowed the essayists to share their knowledge and experience in the topics they researched, or even—in the case of many of the personal essays—lived. 

Thank you to all the participants for such interesting, emotional, and timely discussions that we will be taking with us. For a glimpse at the panels and essays, take a look at the list of topics we covered below! 

DC Panels and Panelists

Personal Identity and Pop Culture

This panel will explore how film, literature, and fashion can help us better understand ourselves both as individuals and as part of a larger culture.

• “The Snap-Back: Spy Kids and Self Improvement” by Ruth Pournelle
• “To Be a Lolita”  by Darcy Hoffpauir
• “On Waiting” by Zoe Becker
• “Burden” by Camille Crawford Galvani

Protecting Our Planet, Our People, and Our Past

These panelists look across oceans, into the atmosphere, and into deep cuts of history to explore how we can create a more informed, inclusive world and preserve knowledge thoughtfully and ethically.

• “Things we think are sustainable… that actually aren’t” by Viraaj Raofield
• “British Museum: Are They Thieves?” by Nala Delgado
• “Angel from Bethesda” by Eleanor Woodworth
• “Alchemy and Elemental Philosophy: The Scientific Origins of the Fantastical”  by Fenley Scurlock
• “Risking Peace: A Case Study of U.S.- Iran Relations” by Christopher Park

Faith, Doubt, and Education

Growing up in a community with a strong religious or cultural identity, what happens when you start to question what you’ve been taught? These panelists each present an empathetic and nuanced account of defining their own beliefs.

• “I Have Never Been to Israel” by Zoe Becker
• “Religion” by Gabriela Quesenberry

Representation and Misrepresentation

These panelists tackle issues of racism, sexism, and ableism in medical systems, the media, and microaggressions.

• “Terms and Conditions May Apply” by Anya Nehra
• “AFRICA, MY FAVORITE COUNTRY: The problem with menacing misrepresentation” by Amanda-Pearl OmoiguiGrenham
• “Bridging the Gap: an Exploration of the Hidden Factors Behind Minority Health Inequalities” by Abeni Smith
• “Redefining Worth: A Journey Through Neurodivergence” by Kai Grenha

NYC Panels and Panelists 

Panel 1

The Impact of Culture On Individual Identity 

How does culture affect and inform our identity? The following essays explore how relationships, food, language and physical spaces play a role in shaping our understanding of our values and character. During this panel, we’ll discuss questions and have conversations around concepts of identity, belonging and upbringing.

• “The Weight of Translation” by Ziyi Feng
• “Exactly Like Your Mother” by Liah Igel 
• “An Elaborate Home Cooked Meal” by Juliette Moore 
• “My Culture” by Dylan Macer
• “The Effect of Music on the Mind” by Hayden Chung

Panel 2

What is Gender? An Exploration of Gender Expectations and Language

These essays about feminism, hypermasculinity, and what “gender” means discuss how gender is integrated into our society. Everyone benefits from conversations about gender. Gender norms and expectations permeate our politics, culture, and everyday lives, sometimes in the least expected ways. 

• “Defining a Word the Doesn’t Exist” by Tamsin Coulthard 
• “The Definition of Feminism” by Araceli Flores 
• “Great Expectations: Gen Z and Hypermasculinity” by Jonathan Zhang
• “Deconstructing Gender” by Ronin Herrmann
• “Shakespeare’s Facade” by Dylan Oh
• “What One Conversation in PE Revealed” by Daniela Avrekh
• “Sexual Violence Laws: Culture and Rationalizing Sexual Violence” by Edward Lee

Panel 3

Protecting Our Planet, Our People, and Our Past

Learning from past triumphs and mistakes, this panel will examine specific cultural and global moments and discuss best practices to benefit humanity and the world we inhabit. 

• “The Media’s Oversimplification of Culture is a Threat to Everyone’s History” by Alice Campbell
• “Incense and Insights: Delving Into Maya Culture Through Archaeology” by Olivia Campbell
• “Mutterings with Montesquieu” by Jack Aronian 
• “Two Sides of the Same Coin: Wildfire vs Forest Fire” by William Zhang
• “Climate Change Effect Challenges” by Ayun Roh

Panel 4

Love, Family, and Community: How to Navigate Your Relationship with Yourself and Others

These personal essays take a deep look at love and relationships. They explore loss, grief, working as a team, family dynamics, and how to love both those around you and yourself. During this panel we will discuss the ever-burning question “what is love?” and have a conversation about the ways we can use community, communication, and teamwork to help and heal each other. 

• “The Equinox of Love” by Eleni Piniros 
• “The Flavor of Loss” by Surya Das
• “Unspoken Rules: The Silence that Speaks Volumes” by Nathan Lionetti
• “A Voice Stolen and Taken Back” by Eliana Genitrini
• “Adolescence: Searching Past Murky Waters and Masked Faces” by Stella Burns

Panel 5

Philosophy, Art and Media: How Creating and Consuming Contributes to Self-Reflection and Growth 

Resistance, hope, power, perception: each of these essays use personal stories, stories from art, literature, and media, to analyze our existential experiences. How do we exist in a world where we are so similar, and sometimes so different, from each other? What do we need to remember, thrive for, and practice, to live a peaceful and meaningful life among 8 billion other unique minds?

• “The Defiant Weight Against Existence” by Aiden Ashcraft
• “Who Gets to Be Seen: Power and Perception in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man” by Olivia Meyer
• “My Personal Essay” by Aidan Inwood 
• “Thing That Disappear” by Serena Lin
• “Why the Curtains are Never Just Blue” by Beatrix Gruver 

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Hi Everyone! 

It’s Zoe Becker coming to you live from DC (certainly an interesting place to be right now) with this week’s Epistle! Weekly Epistles are generally written by Director of Teen Programs, Lena Roy, for those of us who are part of the year-long pre-college Creative Portfolio Program but I’ve wanted to contribute a guest Epistle forever so I am very appreciative of Lena just giving me free reign, haha. 

One concept I wanted to focus on that’s been on my mind a lot lately is imagination. I’ve been thinking about it in two main contexts. 

First, in the context of writing. Its application here is self explanatory–we need our imaginations to write (no matter whether you’re writing fiction, non-fiction, or a hybrid). While that sounds pretty obvious, it’s been something I’ve had to make an intentional effort to remind myself of, lately. As Junior year relentlessly goes on, it’s really easy to fall into a bit of a doom spiral about school, college, life, and so on and so forth. For me, that spiral has targeted writing specifically. I dread opening my laptop and spend outsized amounts of time just focused on tailoring my work to a specific contest or summer program. It is exhausting and demoralizing. And while there’s certainly a time and place for chasing prestige, a recent conversation with my mom reminded me why I started writing as a little kid in the first place. I did not start writing to win contests or arbitrarily earn a spot on a college campus the summer after Junior year. I started writing because I love it. I love the freedom to come up with any story in the world and then make it come alive. I love being allowed to just imagine. So, if you too are in the Junior year (or Freshman, Sophomore, or Senior, for that matter) rut, my first piece of advice would just be to return to imagination. 

Imagination as a concept, though, is much more broadly applicable. Like I mentioned, it’s a weird time to be in DC right now. And I’m not going to beat around the bush here. I will say with my full chest that what is happening in the West Wing is terrifying. Just today, the White House threatened the fate of the Kennedy Center which I have treasured for years (and which has had an indelible impact on my artistic upbringing). Doom is not the answer though. I’m not saying this to be cheesy. I’m saying this from a pragmatist’s point of view, actually. There’s some fascinating research about how overexposure to so-called “disaster news” can literally wear down our adrenal glands and fray our nervous system such that we become increasingly depressed and apathetic. The most immediate solution though, the one that we really all have access to, is political and social imagination. Political and social imagination are academic terms that describe exactly what they sound like: the ability to understand our reality and conceive of new ones. If we can focus our energy on imagining a better future rather than a catastrophic one, that is progress. 

So much love, 

Zoe Becker
Senior Officer, Writopia Lab Youth Advisory Board

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 main purpose is to create an Anthology based around a certain theme touching on social justice. They are tasked with doing everything from promotion to reading and discussing submissions, to laying out the book.  This year is being led by sophomore Sonali Browning and senior Emi Shapiro (Dartmouth ‘29) with twelve other Creative Portfolians — Sophia Alvarez, Emily Appleyard, Nola Brooks (UChicago, ‘29), Nell Choi, Rory Frasch (Bryn Mawr, ‘29), Thuy Holder-Vinh, Bee Kanofsky, Annika Lamberti, Serine Lee, Mai McKelvey-Pham, Berrit Nordlander-Borowski, Lili Sella, Margalo Teich—who contribute to our meetings every Tuesday night.

Turning the Page leaders are creating buzz for their upcoming annual Anthology called SPECTRA. They are looking for submissions (fiction, poetry, personal essay, art, photography, etc.) that have something to do with opposite ends of the spectrum and the dialectics around meeting in the middle. They are accepting submissions for SPECTRA through March 31st, 2025.

Sonali hosted Saturday’s event, and in attendance were Annika Lamberti, Robbie Kruger, Bee Kanofsky, Nola Brooks, Margaret Torrey, Emily Appleyard, Naomi Jeske, and Emi Shapiro. Sonali encouraged everyone to create a Moodboard (on shared Google Slides) to explore this idea of spectrum. Here are just a few of the plethora of spectrum guidelines that TtP came up with beforehand.

• Nostalgia (from past to present)
• Belief (from atheism to profound faith)
• Trust (from distrust to trust)
• Time (from past to future)
• Bias (from uninvolved to influenced)
• Visibility (from invisible to visible)
• Normality (from normal to unusual)
• Loneliness (from accompanied to alone)
• Comfort (from comfort to discomfort)
• Perspective (from narrow to open-minded)
• Freedom (from free to confined)
• Color (from monochrome to spectrum)

After sharing the moodboards, and deepening our discussion of ways to look at things from the perspective of a spectrum, Emi created a super fun game of Kahoot for the group, with all writerly/ Writopia questions. A wonderful time was had by all.

Written by Shanille Martin, Head of Writopia Lab’s Debate Program

Writopia alongside our partner’s Debate Spaces hosted another one of our international debate tournaments on Saturday, February 1st, 2025. Rounds began at 8 AM Eastern Time. Debaters argued topics like whether voting should be mandatory, the sale of unhealthy foods to minors, public service, and freedom of speech. Writopia aims to combine our methodology of bringing joy and fun to the arts with the competitiveness of debate. Our debaters learn to have fun with the form but to challenge themselves and push past their fears.

What makes this an international tournament? Our tournaments feature teams from all over the world! Our debaters compete against debaters from cities and countries like Prague, Athens, Nairobi, Manila, India, and more. 

Writopia had many first-time debaters participate in this tournament, including Grace Browning, Yasmina Zaidi, Veer Belani, and Sanah Sabharwal, who all currently attend novice debate workshops at Writopia. Sanah received one of the highest scores of all the new debaters, a super impressive feat!  

Writopia debater Nirali Ydendra was among the top speakers with one of the highest scores in the tournament. Nirali was joined by her teammates Nathalie Rostek-Weretka and Ethan Atallah. 

One of our teams, Writopia Nation, placed in the top teams with only one loss out of 3 rounds. Their team consisted of Jonathan Zhang, Sanah Sabharwal,  Veer Belani, and Ayana Alamgir. 

Seasoned debaters Iman Abdhur Rahman and Hudson Antoniewicz gave strong speeches in their rounds and have been appointed top speakers in other tournaments. 

We are so proud of all our debaters! We hope this experience will help them learn their strengths as speakers and leaders. 

Stay tuned for our next tournament on March 15th, 2025! 

On Tuesday, November 26th, 2024, we sent our community of young writers, parents, guardians, supporters, and educators a set of prompts and received dozens of lines of poetry in response. From all of that magic, we curated this holiday poem… by you and for you. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

“This Thanksgiving, I Am Not Alone”
By You

I am a flowering cactus, a human being, with my feet rooted in the Earth, my eyes facing the sky and my arms wrapped around my beautiful family– blood and chosen.
I am a proud and happy father and grandfather, a speck of dust at the center of my world

I am happy, loved, proud of who I am and have managed to both become and remain through trying times
And for soft tissues while I have a cold
And for everyone who pushed me to keep going 
For my mother’s wrinkled hands catching me… still… although my hair is grey 

I am thankful, thankful for a kid who loves to write as much as I do. 
Thankful for having a good home, for my family and friends
Thankful for living in this country, in this city, in this community.
For my tribe.

I love the morning’s scent of mist
And so I will keep believing in the possibility
And will laugh out loud and dance with abandon in the forest
And I will never stop writing

I believe love flows through space and time bathing us in inextinguishable light and changing us forever.
I believe that everyone has something good about them, that the world is a wonderful place, we just need to be a good community member
I believe we are all born with dignity
That everyone should be loved

I remember the sacrifices made by my family to get me here
I remember what our babies looked like when they first came home
I remember when I wasn’t able to be independent. (And I am thankful for my parents who always care about me.)
I remember family gatherings with a “kids table”
I love laughter at the table. I believe in laughter.
And the taste of sweet potatoes, the smell of lavender and eucalyptus, the touch of my husband’s hand

I hope for a world of peace and understanding that we all are different and those differences are what make for an interesting world
That we all drink a healing juice
I believe everyone has the strength to make a difference
I hope for good change, and my ability to create it
I remember being scared 
Because I love the spare ochre horizons of the American southwest
And I love the beach
And am still figuring it all out.

I love your hand in mine, your mirth bubbling up in my consciousness
I am thankful for the ability to learn through a time
when education is more vital than ever
I remember when my father used to remember my name
I believe in us… and will strive to keep an open heart along with an open mind
I will be kind

I remember the smell of my grandmother’s perfume as she held me tight when I was a little girl
I know that better times are coming, not in some hoped-for world to come, but here, right here on this green earth.
I will do what I can to help make this world better than it was when I entered it.

I am spiced, baked, crispy, roasted, fluffed, mashed, sliced, deliciously awaiting 
I am a tennis-loving dancer,
I am a wind light in the words of the garden
I am stronger than I ever feel like I am
I will always be happy

I love my community, my family, my friends 
And the feeling of light from commiserating in a shared darkness
I will celebrate Christmas with my friends this year
I love watching my children and grandchildren learn, grow, and expand their horizons
I will strive to be even more grateful 

I remember my first Broadway show – Aladdin!
I hope for snow this Christmas, and for a nice break
I hope I will grow this year
And that I will be successful. 

I love drawing, painting, reading, and writing,
And pie,
And sleep
I hope everyone takes care of their well-being
I believe in goodness, despite evidence to the contrary, 
I believe in innate goodness
of all humanity. Love comes naturally 
I love my neighbors. All 8 billion. You should too!
You have to be taught how to hate 
We all need to lead by example

I hope I can continue to express myself freely.
I believe that everyone can obtain their goals if they want to 
I hope love will always be stronger than fear, that the world will be more welcoming, inclusive and nurturing for our future generations
I believe we should break more bread together
And I hope there is a purpose and a meaning I cannot see now

I know it will be a good wrap-up to the year!
I will be nice
I will continue to stand tall against oppression
I will remain optimistic, when it becomes difficult
I know who I am or who I would like to be

Mostly, I am thankful for the night
To breathe against the midnight moon
Because I am thankful for being alive in a web of writers 
and for drifting to sleep at each day’s end

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.