Write-to-Recognition

Writopia Reading Lab

Monday, July 14th to Friday, July 18th, 2025

We are thrilled to launch a brand new program this summer: the Writopia Reading Lab!

At the Writopia Reading Lab, our mission is to support and grow a love for reading. As has been widely reported, young people are socializing less and less around books. But at our Reading Lab, our kids choose their own books, and share space together as they turn pages, asking questions, and sharing thoughts, feelings, and ideas as they go.

Our readers also spend time each day writing reflections and reviews, and giving Ted Talks about what they like or dislike most within their books. Best of all, our kids leave the workshop reinvigorated about reading, excited about the specific books they’re reading, and with a list of recommendations from their peers.

When: Monday, July 14th to Friday, July 18th, 2025
Where: Upper West Side [see map]
Who: Readers ages 8 to 14 (in age-based groups)

Half-Day and Full-Day programs available.

Game Leader

Leah Ly is just delighted to be starting a new adventure with Writopia Lab as a Game Leader. After graduating from Rowan University with a BA in Radio/Television/Film with a Creative Writing concentration, she has spent a decade professionally entrenched in nerdy and creative spaces. For the past few years, tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) have been her happy place. She is truly the embodiment of the theatre kid to TTRPG enthusiast pipeline. Her passion for character crafting, worldbuilding, and collaborative storytelling combined with her deep commitment to performance has been the cornerstone of her approach to every game. 

Between campaigns, Leah wrote and performed her first original theatrical piece in spring 2023 and has been appearing in independent theatre in the DC metro area ever since. She is so excited to be engaging young people in the power of tabletop gaming with Writopia Lab, where she can create magical moments (and also play all the bad guys). 

STEM Writing

View STEM Writing on the Schedule!

In the STEM Writing workshop, tweens and teens who love science, math, and technology have the rare opportunity to experience how it feels to be a science writer for the week!  

Writers explore journalistic science writing, Sci-fi, and personal science writing, and commit to completing one fully developed piece by the end of the week. The workshop is led by passionate science readers and writers and will be peppered with visits from full-time science writers and editors.

“My son’s instructor perfectly understands his strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, they work amazingly together: she is helping Markian blend in with the other classmates, build his confidence in expressing his thoughts from a structural standpoint and encouraging him to productively put ideas on paper line after line. Everyone is enjoying this class and the time just flies by… Thank you!”

Lilya

BOOKed for the Summer

Click here to see BOOKed for the Summer on the schedule!

A half-day workshop for kids and teens to discover, rediscover, or simply dig into the joy of reading—together! 

Over the course of fifteen hours, a group of young readers and writers in aged-based groups will get together with an instructor—an enthusiastic, avid reader—and read a wide selection of short-form material around a central theme in pursuit of a central question, including at least one short story, part of a screenplay or play, a piece of creative nonfiction, poetry, and one song. They’ll develop writing in a genre of their choice inspired by a piece of reading, as well as a “reader’s letter,” an informal missive to someone important to them where they explore their process as a reader and a writer. They’ll engage in conversations around the reading, themes, and questions of the week as they form something of a reading club centered around literary discovery.

In a 2024 parent survey, almost half of our families reported that they witnessed their child become more engaged in reading as a result of their growing connection to the writing process.

Congratulations 2024 Hudson-to-Housatonic Scholastic Writing Awards recipients!

View the full list of works recognized in the 2024 Hudson-to-Housatonic Writing Region of the Scholastic Writing Awards below!

A panel of professional novelists, editors, teachers, poets, librarians, journalists, and other literary professionals selected these works from 2,708 works submitted this year.

• 584 Honorable Mentions awarded to promising works
• 319 Silver Keys awarded to distinguished works
• 112 Gold Keys awarded to the most accomplished works
• 5 American Voice Nominees selected as the strongest regional works

Gold Keys are automatically forwarded for consideration at the national level of the Scholastic Writing Awards.

H2H Awards Ceremony

To recognize their outstanding work, this year's Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mention recipients are invited, along with their guests, teachers, and our esteemed jurors, to the 2024 Awards Ceremony for the Hudson-to-Housatonic Region of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards!

• Date: Sunday, April 7th, 2024
• Time: 2 PM to 4 PM ET
• Where: Manhattanville College's Reid Castle
  2900 Purchase St, Purchase NY, 10577
• Click here to RSVP!

American Voices Nominees

• Valencia Massaro of the School of the New York Times Summer Academy, for The Mall (Short Story)
• Claire Nam of Horace Greeley High School, for Lakȟóta Language Revitalization: We Must Save Our Dying Tongues (Critical Essay)
• Zahra Sadoughi of Edgemont Jr Senior High School, for Dark Space (Poetry)
• Lauren Zhang of Darien High School, for Magnolia Tree (Short Story)
• Emily Zhang of Roy C Ketcham Senior High School, for bloodred white & blue (Poetry)

2024 Hudson-to-Housatonic Scholastic Awards

Congratulations 2024 DC Metro Scholastic Writing Awards recipients!

View the full list of works recognized in the 2024 DC Metro Writing Region of the Scholastic Writing Awards below!

A panel of professional novelists, editors, teachers, poets, librarians, journalists, and other literary professionals selected these works from 2,351 works submitted this year.

• 482 Honorable Mentions awarded to promising works
• 258 Silver Keys awarded to distinguished works
• 110 Gold Keys awarded to the most accomplished works
• 4 American Voice Nominees selected as the strongest regional works

Gold Keys are automatically forwarded for consideration at the national level of the Scholastic Writing Awards.

DC Awards Ceremony

To recognize their outstanding work, this year's Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mention recipients are invited, along with their guests, teachers, and our esteemed jurors, to the 2024 Awards Ceremony for the DC Metro Writing Region of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards!

• Date: Sunday, April 21st, 2024
• Time: 2 PM to 4 PM ET
• Where: UDC Theater of the Arts
  4200 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008
• Click here to RSVP!

American Voices Nominees

• Dylan Furbay of Landon School for Man, Monster, Man-Monster: Masculinity (Critical Essay)
• Lily Scheckner for My Backseat Baby: or, My Last Name (Poetry)
• Chelsea Zhu of Richard Montgomery High School, for Song of Survival (Poetry)
• Aileen Zhao of Mclean High School, for Robot Girl (Science Fiction & Fantasy) & Everyone You’ve Ever Kissed Up To Now (Poetry)

2024 DC Metro Scholastic Awards

Sports Writing

Click here to see Sports Writing on the schedule!

In our Sports Writing Workshops, middle school and teen writers have the opportunity to explore every form of sports writing from reviews to features, to op-eds and personal essays. In our Sports Writing Full-Day Program, campers also eat lunch in the park, have an opportunity to play sports and join creative arts electives (like graphic novels and filmmaking). On certain days, we will head out to live games, interview athletes, and meet sports editors and writers.

2023 Youth Essay Writing Conference:

A Celebration of Critical Thinking Across Disciplines

Writopia’s 2023 youth essay writing conference will be held both online and in-person.

Our in-person conferences will be held in New York City and Washington, DC on Sunday, February 12th, 2023 from 2 PM to 5 PM EST.

Our online conference will be held on Saturday, February 11th, 2023, from 1 PM to 4 PM EST/10 AM to 1 PM PST.

The Conference welcomes the next generation to share their ideas, passions, and research with their peers and the community at large.

Submissions for our 2023 conference are closed.

Featured Panels

Autonomy

Democracy, freedom, independence - these are terms that we hear often. They are ideals that have been, and continue to be, sought after. Now more than ever autonomy has come to the forefront of numerous discussions from the personal to the political. There is a point where we allow for governance and to self-govern, but what happens when there is disagreement? When should governing bodies and authority figures, including family and teachers, have agency and when should we have agency over ourselves? What is autonomy to you? How do you maintain autonomy? Are there situations where you should relinquish it?

Pop Culture/Fandom

Pop culture unites society in our joy for entertainment through music, television, film, video games, the internet, and social media. It’s part of our everyday conversations, elicits interpersonal connections, shows us how the world reacts to new ideas, and influences trends. In what ways do you think society has benefited from, or has been hindered by, pop culture influences? How does pop culture influence government, politics, education, and art? Is pop culture art? What can we learn from pop culture influence and the way the world interacts through pop culture?

Other Panels

The themes are formed organically from a pool of critical essays we have received from writers from all over the country. Some of our past panels and panels we hope to host during our 2023 conference are listed below:

• Literature/Film/Media/Music/The Arts
• Science/Technology
• Philosophy/Religion
• Current Events
• History
• Race/Culture/Gender
• Call to Action!
• Traditions and Rituals
• and more!