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.