NY's Award-Winning Young Poets and Rising Stars Read at Bryant Park!

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.

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.

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.


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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Writopia on CBS!

Posted by Rebecca Wallace-Segall

Earlier this summer, CBS invited Writopia kids to the live taping of the Saturday Early Show. They had initially told us that they were just looking to fill their audience with kids from NYC's arts programs. But once they saw our bright and beautiful young writers they decided to interview them about their creative endeavors on national television! Above, Julia Prestfelder is being pre-interviewed for her first interview on the big screen. More photos below.

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Writopia's Family Memoir Workshop Series at Bryant Park

Posted by Rebecca Wallace-Segall

Writopia held its annual family workshop at Bryant Park over three Saturdays in July. At these hour and half workshops, a small group of kids and teens discussed quietly with their parents (or sometimes with an aunt or uncle) a shared experience they each wished to write about.

Some families chose to write about an earthquake they survived together, others wrote about a young family member's ordeal with a broken bone, others wrote about a family member's dreamy 8th birthday party. Each family wrote about the same event from their own point of view. At the end, as each participant read their memoir aloud, the group was brought to laughter over and over again, and sometimes to tears. It is an event we look forward to year after year!

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