Sophia Marie Lee
Instructor
Sophia is thrilled to be joining Writopia Lab, Westchester as a Writing Instructor. Sophia is an author of books for children and young adults. Her first book, What Things Mean, is a young adult novel published by Scholastic Asia (2016). This work won the Grand Prize at the 2014 Scholastic Asian Book Awards, and is one of the first young adult stories about the Philippines to have been published by Scholastic. What Things Mean was included in the Philippine Daily Inquirer's Top 10 Books of 2016. Her second book, a children's picture book titled Soaring Saturdays, won 2nd Prize at the Samsung KidsTime Authors' Awards (2015). It was digitized into an interactive e-book app in 2016 and is set for print release by Scholastic Asia in 2018. Sophia wanted to be many things growing up: doctor, teacher, ballerina, ninja, crime-fighting international spy, wizard, time traveler, journalist, and lawyer. She likes to think she can be all these things through writing. She studied creative writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman, and is currently a Creative Writing MFA Candidate with a concentration in Writing for Children and Young Adults at The New School in New York City. You can find her online at www.sophianlee.com.
Alison Doherty
Instructor
Alison Doherty loves working with writers of all ages at Writopia Lab. She also teaches writing classes to freshman at The New School. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School in 2016 with a concentration in writing for children and teenagers. For undergrad, Alison studied English Literature at Smith College and The University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Before moving to New York, Alison worked as a classroom teacher and a curriculum consultant at Harvard EdLabs. Now, when she isn't teaching, Alison is working on her first YA novel and writing about books for Book Riot.
Di Jayawickrema
Instructor
Di Jayawickrema is thrilled to be part of the Writopia Lab team! She is a Sri Lankan New Yorker who is passionate about cross-genre writing, community-building, and youth mentorship. Di has mentored youth since she herself was a teenager, and has founded and facilitated writing communities for young writers, women and non-binary writers, and writers of color throughout her adulthood. Her cross-genre writing has appeared in numerous literary journals, including wildness, Jellyfish Review, Pithead Chapel, and Entropy, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and anthologized in Best Microfiction. She received an honors degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from Binghamton University, and has been awarded fellowships from Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation and Kundiman. She is currently on staff at the award-winning publications, The Offing and The Rumpus, and is working on a book as often as her joyous, rambunctious infant will allow her!
Jane Young
Instructor
Jane Young began teaching Writopia Lab workshops in 2019. Her plays have been seen in over a dozen Off- and Off Off-Broadway venues in New York, and her short film, "River," was screened in international festivals in New York City, Toronto, Brazil, and Houston. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she served as a non-fiction editor for its literary magazine, Lumina. Her fiction debuted in the premier issue of the magazine, and additional stories have been published in Rock and a Hard Place Magazine. She previously collaborated with former New Directions Publishing editor and author Thomas Keith on several plays, and a book of their poetry, The Histories of Gladys, was published by Mellon Poetry Press, resulting in a critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway production directed by Obie Award-winner Edward Cornell. Past teaching credits include State University of New York at Purchase College, the Women’s Correctional Facility at Bedford Hills, LEAP, and Goddard-Riverside Community Center, and she currently teaches adults in several genres at The Writer's Rock.
Rachel Calnek-Sugin
Instructor
Rachel Calnek-Sugin's life was changed and her love of writing was nurtured when she joined a Writopia Lab workshop as a middle schooler, and Writopia soon became a home away from home. Thirteen years later, Rachel is now a published and produced writer, educator, and activist committed to the openness of the soul in all its forms! She is delighted to join the Writopia staff as an instructor. Rachel writes stories, creative nonfiction, and plays—which have had productions or development in New York, New Haven, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles—about the weird, vast lives of women and girls. She graduated from Yale University in 2019, where she studied Creative Writing and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. Since then, she’s been developing and teaching in an after-school program for refugee youth in New Haven, CT. Rachel completed her Master's in Social Work in July 2023.
Samantha Arriozola
Instructor
Samantha Arriozola (she/her/hers) is a Chicana writer and youth worker from the Chicagoland-area. She has spent the past eight years working in nonprofit spaces and community centers in Madison, WI and New York City. She has been with Writopia Lab since 2020, and even went to camp for the first time since she was ten for WriCampia 2021. Sam received her B.A. in English/Creative Writing as a proud member of the 8th Cohort of First Wave—a Hip-Hop and urban arts full-tuition scholarship program at UW-Madison, centering the pursuit of higher education with arts, academics, and activism. Sam is a poet with roots in the world of spoken word poetry and slam, a background that has carried over in coaching young spoken word artists to compete in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival in 2017 and 2018. Sam's poetry has been published in Pinwheel Journal (2018) and Cutthroat Journal: Contemporary Chicanx Writers Anthology (2020). Sam lives in Queens with her human and plant roommates, editing both her own and fellow writers' work with chamomile tea by her side.
Susan Yassky
Instructor
Susan Yassky joined Writopia Lab in 2024. She is a Brooklyn-bred playwright and dramaturg and a member of Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theatre's OBIE Award-winning collective of early-career writers. Her work has been developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Yale University. Her plays include A Variation (EST Bloodworks reading, 2023), The Women’s Center (Bay Area Playwrights Festival semi-finalist, 2022), Little Lines (Goldberg Playwriting Award finalist, 2022), and Myrmarachne (EST/Sloan Commission). She received her MFA in dramatic writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she was given the Chair's Award for Excellence in Dramatic Writing. Susan loves working with the thoughtful, dedicated writers at Writopia Lab!
Sofia Baluyut
Assistant Instructor
Sofia Baluyut participated in Writopia Lab workshops as a young writer, worked with brilliant teen writers during Writopia’s 2023 Advanced Writing Seminar, and is thrilled to rejoin the community as an Assistant Instructor! A poet raised in Brooklyn, NY, Sofia also serves as an Assistant Manager at Brooklyn Poets. She is a recent graduate of Wesleyan University, where she earned a BA in American Studies with a Writing Certificate and contributed to various publications within the Route 9 Literary Collective. When not writing, you can find Sofia rock climbing, admiring trees, and spending time with her loved ones.
María Elisa Schmidt
Instructor
María Elisa Schmidt is a Mexican bilingual writer, translator, and educator who holds an MFA in Poetry from The New School. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in renowned magazines in Mexico, such as Gatopardo, Tierra Adentro, and Círculo de Poesía, and she was editor-in-chief of C de Cultura, a Mexican magazine, for seven years. She has experience teaching creative writing to kids and has volunteered as a literacy teacher for Read 718 in Bed-Stuy. She interns at Brooklyn Poets, where she helps organize poetry events and craft talks. Her favorite Latin American authors are Jorge Luis Borges, Elena Garro, and Leila Guerriero. One of her biggest dreams is to launch a creative writing school in Mexico City, her beloved hometown!
Vanessa Walters
Instructor
Vanessa Walters is thrilled to join the Writopia Lab in Brooklyn, teaching creative writing across all age groups. She is a novelist, playwright, poet, and journalist with an LLB in Law and French Law from the University College of London. Her published books are Rude Girls, Best Things in Life (Pan Macmillan, UK), Smoke! Othello! (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea), and The Lagos Wife (Simon & Schuster US, Penguin RandomHouse, UK). Vanessa has also had several plays staged, most recently Michael X (Almeida Theatre, UK). She has previously been a journalist for Thomson Reuters, The Financial Times, and The Guardian Nigeria. She has fellowships from Tin House and The Millay Colony. She has previously taught creative writing workshops to children via The Arvon Foundation in the UK and as the Writer-In-Residence for The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. She has also, as part of the self-founded Hidden Country collective, delivered free online weekly writing workshops to the community since 2020. Vanessa is on the Pen Parentis board and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music advisory council. Atria Books will publish her forthcoming novel, Black Excellence, in 2026. In her spare time, Vanessa plays Mom to her two children and tends to her out-of-control TBR in Brooklyn.
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