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Posted by Rebecca Wallace-Segall
On a warm Tuesday evening in July, Writopia had the pleasure of hosting a poetry reading celebrating the works of New York City's award-winning teen poets and rising stars with an audience of over 75 family members, friends, fans, and passersby.
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The best moment of the event probably occurred at the very end of our Question & Answer session when a five-year-old girl asked the panel of young poets how old they were when they began writing. "Your age," responded Stephen Piccarella, 17, a 2008 National Gold Key Recipient of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The little girl beamed as eight others took the mic to share funny and encouraging words.
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More photos below of award-winning writers and rising stars: Julia Dratel, 17, Emma Fiske-Dobell, 16, Mary Gilbert, 16, En-Szu Hu-Van Wright, 17, Isabel Marcus, 14, Maxine McGredy, 13, Pearl Mutnick, 14, Stephen Piccarella, 17, Genevieve Sambrook, 11, Rebecca Teich, 12, Jessica Zalph, 14. (These writers read their own award-winning or new poetry along with the works of the following award-winning and, in some cases, published young poets: Noa Bendit-Shtull, 16, Louis Evans, 17, Nadya Kronis, 13, Jamie Maffeo, 14, and Nicole Maffeo, 16.
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Thank you to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for helping us gather such a spectacular group of young writers, and for the invaluable work they do in inspiring and celebrating the emergence of new creative works across the country.
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