text:
Executive Director, Instructor
Rebecca founded Writopia Lab in April 2007, currently directs the national organization, and teaches writing workshops in NYC and at special events throughout the country. Rebecca has won multiple teaching awards including the Scholastic Awards' 2012 Ovation Inspired Teacher Award for submitting the most outstanding senior portfolios on the national level and for "developing a method of working with students that inspires them to create original work that embodies their unique, personal voice.... Because of [her] tutelage... these students are now empowered to bring that voice into the broader world..." She has also won the 2008, 2009, and 2011 National Gold Apple Teacher Award for "submitting the most outstanding group of submissions on the national level" to the Scholastic Art & Writing event. She lectures at schools, events, and parents' organizations on a variety of topics including "How to Inspire the Writer Within Your Child," "Writing for High School and College Admittance," and on "Identifying and Participating in Positive Competitions." Previously, Rebecca established the creative writing program at the Abraham Joshua Heschel Middle School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan as a consultant. While she was there, the program outperformed every other school in the city (including every elite public and private institution) in Scholastic's prestigious Art & Writing Awards competition. She has been awarded recognition from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as an "outstanding educator" every year since 2006. (Writopia won Scholastic's official endorsement in 2007.) Rebecca was also nominated by students and selected to be entered into the 11th Edition of Who's Who Among American Teachers. Rebecca has taught at SUNY Albany, New York University, and at Gotham Writers' Workshop. In 2009, Rebecca was invited to join The Op-Ed Project Mentor Editor Program and has since helped several brilliant women break into some of the nation's most widely read national opinion pages. In 2002, she had the pleasure of working with young writers in New York City public schools for the first time as a resident writer with the Teachers & Writers Collaborative. By 2003, she was working at the Heschel School, planting the seeds for a unique and successful creative writing program there. She also participated in the judging of the Scholastic competition in 2006 and currently serves as a judge of several national youth writing competitions (in which her students are not involved). Writings Rebecca began writing for publications in 1997. She has contributed opeds about education and writing to the The Atlantic Monthly and The Wall Street Journal, and thought pieces to The Huffington Post, and The Nation, along with five cover stories (and other pieces) to the Village Voice. She has contributed the foreword to Bryant Park's Poem in Your Day Chapbook 2012 and to The Scholastic Award's 2012 Best Teen Writing. She also served as Senior Editor at Psychology Today Magazine, and won Salon's "Best People Story of the Year Award" for "Love Labor's Flossed." In 1999, she became a Journalism Fellow at Brandeis University. In 2003, she entered the world of comedy writing, and began writing and performing sketch comedy around NYC. She won a "Best Sketch" competition at the Upright Citizens Brigade in 2006.
Associate Director of ProgramsInstructor
Yael is thrilled to be part of the Writopia team! She received her BA in English from Stern College of Yeshiva University, and joined Writopia Lab in 2011. She has taught and tutored writing in several New York City colleges and private schools, and has worked as a director, most recently directing at 59e59 Theaters and at Roy Arias Theater. At Writopia she works as an instructor and program developer. Her Writopia students have received Scholastic recognition on both on the regional and national levels, and she has served as a national judge for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In 2012, she was recognized by the Scholastic Awards "as an outstanding educator whose dedication, commitment, and guidance are represented by student work selected for national honors."
Associate Director of Camps and CurriculumInstructor
Danielle is honored to work as an instructor and program developer at Writopia. Danielle studied writing at Stanford University and New York University, and graduated from the Draper Program at NYU in January 2010. Her latest one-act play, Under Somebody's Nose, was produced at Roy Arias theater in November of 2012. She produced and performed the one-acts Graduands to Graduates; The Megalomaniac and Valedictorian Commence and Scene From a Dartboard at the Manhattan Repertory theatre in March through June 2010, and the one-act Look at Me When I Am Talking to You at the Wings Theatre in New York in May 2008. Her short story "Before Noon" was published in the Intersections Issue of the NYU journal, Anamesa. She has had the opportunity to teach English and creative writing in a classroom setting to children in Ghana, Africa, Chinatown, New York, East Palo Alto, California, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2014, she was recognized by the Scholastic Awards "as an outstanding educator whose dedication, commitment, and guidance are represented by student work selected for national honors."
Courtney Sheinmel teaches summer and year-round fiction and memoir workshops at Writopia Lab. She grew up in California and New York, graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College, and Fordham University School of Law. After working as a litigator for several years, Courtney decided to focus on her true love: writing. Her critically-acclaimed debut "tween" novel, My So-Called Family, was published by Simon & Schuster in October, 2008. Her second book, Positively, came out in September 2009. She is also the author of Sincerely Sophie/Sincerely Katie (June 2010) and You Can't Even Measure It (2011). You can visit Courtney online at www.courtneysheinmel.com.
Playwriting and Screenwriting Teacher
Original Artistic Director of Writopia Lab's Worldwide Plays Festival
Communications and Development Officer
Eunju has been part of the Writopia family since 2008. She had attended Writopia as a teen writer and returned as a full-time staffer in the summer of 2013. She had been introduced to Writopia through the Jack Kent Cook Foundation Scholarship in partnership with Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. It had all started with a Scholastic National Gold Medal for a story about a talking Easy Bake Oven that offers a magical brownie to a girl whose idea of a superhero was to turn into a boy. During her senior year in highschool, she placed second in the Random House Creative Writing Competition for Personal Essay/Memoir, as well as won various recognitions from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards on both regional and national levels. Eunju studied at Yale University where she earned a B.A. in Film Studies.
New Jersey Regional Manager and Head Instructor
Kira is the author of three suspense novels: Living Proof (Tor, 2012), No Time to Die (Kensington, 2014), and Die Again Tomorrow (Kensington, 2015). She holds a journalism degree from New York University and a Master of Science degree in Bioethics from Columbia University. Her articles have been published in a variety of major media outlets, including The New York Times, Popular Mechanics, Newsday, and New York magazine. Kira is passionate about teaching the art of storytelling to young writers and aims to instill in her students a lifelong enjoyment of creative writing.
Allison is thrilled to join Writopia Lab as the Long Island Workshop Coordinator and instructor. As a certified English teacher, she has been sharing her own passion for writing with her students for nearly two decades. At Plainview Old Bethpage JFK High School, her classroom was a venue for frequent writer celebrations; each class was given the opportunity to publish its own anthology of short stories, and her students were regular contributors to publications such as Merlyn's Pen and Stone Soup. She was the adviser of the literary magazine Images, which was presented at the Columbia Writer's Conference for several years. Many of her students also received recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Since 2003, Allison has had the opportunity to teach writing in schools across Long Island, including Solomon Schechter and the Eton Academy in Plainview. She has remained involved with the NY City Writing Project and Long Island Language Arts Council. Allison studied English Literature at the University of North London, and at SUNY Stony Brook, where she received her B.A. in English and M.A. in Teaching English. She is excited to have the opportunity to bring Writopia to Long Island, as she continues to inspire creativity in kids and teens.
Alyssa Sheinmel is the author of The Beautiful Between, The Lucky Kind, and The Stone Girl, all published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. Alyssa grew up in California and New York, and graduated from Manhattan's Spence School and Barnard College. Alyssa worked in publishing for nearly a decade, and now writes full time in New York City. You can visit Alyssa online at AlyssaSheinmel.com or follow her on Twitter @AlyssaSheinmel.
Rachel is thrilled and honored to be joining the Writopia Lab team! She is an award winning playwright and poet based out of Washington D.C. Her plays have been developed and produced in New York, London, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. She was the recipient of the Kennedy Center's JFK National Playwriting Scholarship and a finalist for the National Partners of American Theatre National Playwriting Award. Her poetry was published in the anthology, The Poetry of Yoga, in November 2011.As an educator, Rachel has worked with Horizon Theatre Company's "New South Young Playwrights Festival", the DC Theatre Lab, and Imagination Stage's "Speak Out On Stage" program, where she guided students through a devised theatre-making process and wrote the book and lyrics for the program's musical, On This Side of the Mountain, which will be produced in June 2012. Rachel is also a founding member of In One Day DC, a social outreach initiative whose mission is to cultivate community connection and empowerment through artistic expression. Rachel has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Catholic University of America and a B.A. in Theater and English with a minor in Creative Writing from Arcadia University.
Rachel Ephraim has taught fiction and memoir at Writopia Lab in Brooklyn and Manhattan since 2008, spearheaded the establishment of Writopia Brooklyn, and is now the Regional Manager for Writopia in the Mid Hudson Valley. Her work has appeared in The Apple Valley Review, The Barcelona Review, Word Riot, Listen Party, The New York Spirit, Park Slope Reader and other journals and publications. In 2009, 2010, and 2012 Rachel's students were honored at the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards with both regional and national awards. Through Writopia, Rachel has led workshops at MS 51, PS 58, Friend's Seminary, Bryant Park and at High Meadow School (Stone Ridge). In 2010, Rachel was accepted as a resident to La Muse Inn, an artists' residency in the south of France. In 2011, she attended Vermont Studio Center on a writer's grant. In 2012, she was a writer-in-residence at Milkwood International in the Czech Republic and at Gowry Art Institute in India. She received her MFA at Columbia University while working in the fiction department of The New Yorker and couldn't be happier with her new move to the Hudson Valley where she's inspired daily by the natural beauty of the landscape.
Peter is thrilled to finally be a full-time member of the Writopia team. He has interned at Writopia for many summers, and used to be a student at Writopia during high school. He's always enjoyed writing and frequently uses it to unwind (and justify procrastinating). Combined with his love of working with kids, Writopia is the perfect place for him. Peter was initially drawn into Writopia before there even was a Writopia. Rebecca Wallace-Segall, Writopia's Executive Director, was his 7th grade English teacher. She encouraged him to submit his stories to the Scholastic Writing Awards, and, in turn, he won multiple regional and national Scholastic Awards during that time. Rebecca helped him realize that writing was more than just a hobby. Now Peter is able to help transmit that lesson to the hundreds of students who attend Writopia's classes every week. Peter graduated from SUNY Binghamton in May, 2014 and is currently pursuing an MA in social studies education at City College.
Human Resources Associate, Instructor
Elsa Bermudez is an instructor at Writopia NYC. She is an eclectic short story writer, script writer, comedian, and artist. She holds her BA in Philosophy and is currently a Creative Writing in Fiction graduate student at the New School. Elsa is also an Editorial Intern for H.O.W. Journal, an improv student at Upright Citizen's Brigade, an aspiring author, actress, and teacher. Her work can be seen in her computer documents file, her google drive, or listed on her recently born IMDB page. Elsa loves fashion, hates speaking in third person, and lives in Astoria, Queens.
Alex Henderson has enjoyed working with young Writopians since 2012. Originally from North Carolina, he has lived in Prague, ČR, and Washington, DC, where he was awarded the Thesis Fiction Fellowship by the MFA program at George Mason University. He soon made the leap to New York City and Writopia's headquarters here, where you can now find him most days of the week (sometimes it's hard to get him to leave). Alex spends his free time riding the subway with a notebook balanced on his knees or figuring out how to re-arrange the bookshelves in his Brooklyn apartment. His fiction has appeared in Harper-Perennial's Fifty-Two Stories and Ekleksographia. He will listen to anyone tell a good story.
Brigit is honored to work as an instructor at the oasis of creativity that is Writopia! Brigit's poetry and fiction have been published in several venues, some of which include The North American Review, 2River View, Eclectica Magazine, Drunken Boat, Opium Magazine, The Pinch, Emerge Literary Journal, and Midwestern Gothic. She has received a nomination for the Million Writers Award, and is a winner of the Esther Unger Poetry Prize as well as a two-time recipient of the James Emanuel Poetry Award.
Program Developer, Private Sessions Coordinator, Instructor
Taylor joined the Writopia team the summer of 2013. She graduated from Purdue University West Lafayette in 2013 with her BA in English Education and Creative Writing. During her last year of college, she taught American Literature and Creative Writing at McCutcheon High School in Indiana full time. Taylor received several literary awards from Purdue for her creative and critical writing and was recently a finalist in NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Contest. Her short fiction was published on NPR's website and a portion was read on the air during All Things Considered. She is passionate about literary outreach and can never pick between writing fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She has been a fan of Writopia for some time so she is thrilled to be part of the team of inspired thinkers, teachers and writers.
Cathleen is the author of two novels for young adults, Slipping (Bloomsbury 2008) and Little Blog on the Prairie (Bloomsbury 2010). She holds a BA in American Studies from Barnard College and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University. Aside from teaching writing to kids, she's worked as a reporter, a salesperson, a market researcher, a copywriter, a birthday party entertainer, a personal shopper and a research assistant. Visit her online at CathleenDavittBell.com. She is thrilled to join the Writopia community. She has two dogs named Oscar and Oprah. Her favorite food is pizza and, strangely, in her thirties, she's developed a great love for playing catch.
Creative Writing Instructor, In-Patient Creative Writing Specialist, and Registration Support
Molly Haas-Hooven is a Brooklyn based playwright and educator. She has had the pleasure of teaching creative writing, playwriting, and college-essay workshops at Writopia Lab since 2012. In 2015, she came on board as a full-time instructor, editor, and administrator. Molly's Writopia students have won Scholastic Writing Awards every year since 2012. She also has been specializing in working with Writopia's writers with disabilities, and is the Writopia Creative Writing Coordinator at Mount Sinai's Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department; there she provides bedside writing support 12 hours a week to children struggling with severe medical conditions. She also serves as the Editor-In-Chief of Mount Sinai's teen literary journal, Surge (which Writopia produces). Her plays have been produced in Boston and New York, and include, Die Kleinen, (NY Premiere, Mastodon Theatre Company, Semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, 2014), The House Itself Does Not Burn, (Semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, 2015), and The Queen, (Naked Angels). Molly received her B.A. in Theater Arts from Brandeis University, and her M.F.A. in Playwriting from the New School for Drama.
Cory Tamler is a playwright and recent transplant to New York after living in Chicago and Berlin (where she was a 2010/2011 Fulbright Scholar). She focuses on community-based work, international collaboration, and the intersection between science and art; her plays have been produced in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Germany, and elsewhere. Most recently, Cory worked with Open Waters Theatre Arts in Maine and three small family-owned farms as the playwright for Farms & Fables, a multi-year project culminating in October 2011 with a play that put farmers onstage alongside professional actors in a story about the future of agriculture. Cory has designed/taught a playwriting workshop for teens at The Telling Room in Portland, ME, and co-designed/co-taught theater classes for students of all ages in Pittsburgh, PA and in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She is originally from Pittsburgh, where she studied physics and fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh. As a homeschooled kid, she took a lot of writing and theater classes and wouldn't be who she is today without them. She is thrilled to be able to step back into that environment as an instructor for Writopia.
Kyle joined the Writopia team in 2015. He is first and foremost a storyteller. As a theater director he devises, develops and directs new plays. As a teaching artist he's worked with the Stuttering Association for the Young (SAY) teaching playwriting and songwriting, Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) teaching music theater, and Serious Fun After School running their program at PS33 in Chelsea. Kyle has directed numerous plays over the last 3 years in Writopia's Worldwide Plays festivals and is pumped to join the team this summer as an Instructor. He holds a BFA in Music Theater from The Hartt School, and recent directing projects include work at Signature, terraNOVA Collective, Culture Project, and 59E59. This summer he will be adapting and directing Shakespeare's As You Like It to be performed in NYC parks. If you see a guy biking around the Upper West Side with a neon yellow helmet and a very sweaty face please wave hello and offer him water. This spring Kyle assisted director Mia Rovegno on the world premier of Underland by Alexandra Collier at 59E59. Currently in development are two new plays by frequent collaborator Tim Duncheon - Stage Spies! and Almost Free as well as an adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It to be performed this August in parks throughout the city.
Jon teaches fiction, nonfiction, and filmmaking at Writopia, NYC. He is a screenwriter freelance writer, and playwright. He received his MFA in film production from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts He has won multiple awards for his independent television production and feature film writing, including the Final Draft Big Break screenplay festival as a semi-finalist. His most recent credit is A Canter's Prayer, a Channel Productions documentary feature due for theatrical distribution in early 2015. His non-fiction work has appeared in such publications as Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Tablet. He also specializes in digital interactive fiction, with Choice of the Rock Star published by Choice of Games LLC, and The Painted Portals of The Prado Pandemonium slated for release by Pocket Gems in November on their Episode platform.
Melissa is excited to join the Writopia team! Melissa graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied Radio/TV/Film and History. She volunteered as a mentor and a Writing & Critical Thinking consultant with Minds Matter NYC for several years, helping students with their college application essays. Melissa has worked at HBO, Comedy Central, TV Land, and Spike TV, and is currently working on her second young adult novel. Melissa is also pursuing an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Amy Dupcak is truly excited to join Writopia, NYC. She studied Writing, Film History, and other random things at Sarah Lawrence College, then earned an MFA in Fiction from The New School. Along the way, she's worked as a music and culture journalist, editor, blogger, and publishing intern. She started and taught a Creative Writing course for high school seniors in Westchester, and now teaches English and tutors on the college level in Manhattan. She has published short stories and creative nonfiction in Sonora Review, Fringe, Phoebe, The Dirty Napkin, and other literary journals, and has also completed her first novel, which she is hoping to get out into the world very soon!
Talia Sand teaches Language Play workshops at Writopia. She graduated from Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University with a BA in Creative Writing and a Minor in Women's Studies. While there, she served as the editor of the Lifestyle section of Stern College Observer. She eventually became the first female staff member and Creative Editor and Section Editor of the Yeshiva University Commentator. She has served as an intern at Random House Publishing and is currently an event assistant at Eloise Shop at the Plaza. Additionally, she has also served as the lead writer of the Simply Southern Cookbook. She recently graduated from the New School for Creative Writing where she studied under David Leviathan and Sarah Weeks. She is currently working on her first Young Adult novel.
Carolyn is a poet and short story writer from New York City. She is a graduate of Eugene Lang College the New School for Liberal Arts, where she received her BA in Creative Writing (2012). Carolyn is founder and curator of the monthly poetry reading series Spilt Milk and has read her work with various series around the city, including at The NYC Poetry Festival on Governor's Island (2013). She has collaborated on a sound collage reading at the Jewish Contemporary Museum in San Francisco (2014), and continues to collaborate with visual artists on site- specific installations, zines, and video projects. She is an ArtFarm Nebraska writer in residence (2014), and recent recipient of a writer's residency at AIR Bergen, Norway (2015). Carolyn is inspired by and thrilled to be part of the Writopia community.
Renee Daniel Flagler joined the Writopia team during the fall of 2014. Renee won an "Excellence in Journalism" from the National Association of Black Journalists, New York Chapter. As a senior fellow with LEAP for Ghana, Renee teaches creative writing to students in the village of Konko in Ghana, Africa and works with the organization to provide aid and support to further the education of young men and woman through high school scholarships. Renee is also the author of five novels, one of which has been optioned for film.
Stephen began teaching fiction and playwriting at Writopia in 2011. His original theatre has been produced throughout New York City for the past seven years through the Brick Theatre, the Downtown Urban Theatre Festival, and the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator, chashama. He has also co-produced community theater for Williamsburg families. He studied English, History and Theatre at Louisiana State University, and recently graduated with his MFA from NYU's Department of Dramatic Writing, where he was awarded the John Golden Prize for Excellence in Playwriting.
David Holmberg teaches fiction and journalism at Writopia NYC. David is a journalist and novelist who's written for The New York Times Magazine, the Times regional edition, The Nation, The Village Voice, the Huffington Post, and New Jersey Monthly. He was a reporter for New York Newsday and a senior editor of The Village Voice, and taught journalism at New York University for four years. His novel, "The Tinderbox" -- based on the shooting of a black teen-ager by a Hispanic police officer in Miami --was published as an e-book in 2012, and his novel about the crisis in print journalism, "The Hurricane Murders," came out in 2010. His short story, "History," based in part on 9/11, was published in the Paterson Literary Review in 2003. His play, "I'm Dying Now And I Did Not Kill Emmett Till," is currently being workshopped; it's based on Holmberg's interview with one of Till's killers in Mississippi in 1994. He's written about the Till case for The Nation, Newsday, The Daily News, and The Palm Beach Post. Early in his career, he covered the civil rights movement for The Washington Star and The Washington Daily News, and the riots in Washington following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. He also covered the AIDS crisis in New York in the '80's for New York Newsday, and the war in El Salvador for the Philadelphia Daily News.
Sarah is a playwright who has worked on all sides of the New York theatre world. She first partnered with Writopia through her position as Acquisitions Director at Playscripts, Inc., where she spearheaded the development of the Playscripts Scholarship Award, presented to a promising high school playwright as part of the 2013 Worldwide Plays Festival. Sarah's plays include New Mutants, A Reunion, All The Women, and Random Decay, and her work has been produced with FullStop Collective, Turnip Theatre Co., and the American Globe Theatre. She has also helped to discover and champion new plays as Literary Manager and Acquisitions Director at Playscripts, and as a member of the Literary Wing of the Lark Play Development Center. Sarah graduated with Honors in Playwriting from Brown University, where she studied with Bonnie Metzgar and Paula Vogel. After falling in love with Writopia through her work on the Worldwide Plays Festival, she is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Writopia's brilliant students and staff as an instructor.
Graphic Novel Mentor
Steve Ross is an artist, illustrator and writer whose work has appeared in many magazines and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He is the creator of two popular graphic novels: Marked, a re-imagining of the Gospel of Mark and Blinded, an idiosyncratic take on the misadventures of St. Paul of Tarsus. He and his son, Allen (a proud Writopia alum), are also the creators of the online web comic www.SeventyOfSeventy.com.
Steve began his professional career as a teenager in San Antonio, Texas, selling pictures of angst-ridden, dark and disturbing surrealist art to his friends and teachers. Soon after high school he landed a job drawing dining room tables for a local furniture company, and was surprised when the owner became upset that he was drawing dark and disturbing surrealist furniture for the company's newspaper ads. They parted company.
You can visit Steve and see more of his work at www.StevenTracyRoss.com.
Beth Breier is excited to be teaching the summer book-making workshops at Writopia Lab. She is a NYS licensed visual arts teacher and has taught art to childen at different schools in Queens. She also gives private art lessons. Beth holds a BA in studio art and an MS in art education from CUNY Queens College. She studied drawing and painting at the Art Institute of Florence. When she is not teaching art, she creates small sculptures with found objects.
Alexander is very excited to be involved with Writopia Lab. He earned an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University, and his first novel, Moondogs, was published by Doubleday and Random House Audio in the spring of 2011. Other work of his has appeared in Salon, American Fiction, The Kenyon Review Online, and the Tin House Blog. He has taught writing in Syracuse, NY, and Fairfax, Va. He used to live in the Philippines. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, he will live in Rwanda.
Elizabeth Buchanan joined Writopia DC as an instructor in February of 2012. She has taught writing at The University of Oregon, where she earned her MFA in fiction writing, and at the St. Albans School for boys, where she currently serves as the school's writer-in-residence. Her stories, reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, Iron Horse Literary Review, Bluestem Magazine, Helix, and therumpus.net, among others, and she is currently at work on a collection of short stories.
Abby Coleman joined Writopia Lab in September 2012. She completed her BA in English/Creative Writing from Hendrix College in Arkansas (2011) and her MFA in Poetry from The New School (2014). Her poetry and artwork have appeared in The Providence Journal, The Aonian, The New School Collaborative (for which she also created the cover design), and most recently in Pieces of Cake, The NYD Anthology 2014, great weather for MEDIA, and Eleven Eleven. She has also created two chapbooks, The Heart Machine and Involuntary Rabbits. Abby is thrilled to be working with Writopia.
Michelle Schusterman joined the Writopia team in the spring of 2014. Michelle is the author of the middle grade series I HEART BAND and THE KAT SINCLAIR FILES (Penguin), as well as the upcoming horror-fantasy novel MAUDEVILLE (Egmont). She has a bachelor's degree in music education from the University of North Texas and was a middle and high school band director for several years before teaching ESL in Brazil and Korea. She currently lives in New York City with her husband (and bandmate) and their chocolate lab (who's more of a vocalist).
Instructor Catherine.Curan@writopialab
Catherine began teaching with Writopia Lab in 2012. Her writing has been published in Fiction, Many Mountains Moving, Ozone Park Journal, the SalonZine and Sleet magazine. As a journalist, Catherine has investigated the mortgage industry for the New York Post, covered fashion shows for Condé Nast Portfolio.com, and earned a Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award for her Crain's New York Business special report on the hip-hop economy. Catherine earned her A.B. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from Princeton University, graduating cum laude, and received an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. She volunteers as Associate Publisher of the online journal Anderbo.com, and has twice served as a national judge for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
Ethan joined the Writopia community as an intern in 2013 and is now a full-time instructor and filmmaking program coordinator. Ethan also leads Writopia's unique Literary Yoga for Language Play. Before working at Writopia he taught Seido Karate, a Japanese martial art, to kids aged 4-13 in Chicago while doing freelance video editing and photography. Ethan graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in May 2015 where he concentrated in religious philosophy, fiction, and non-fiction. During his time there, he produced and directed over a dozen plays.
Registration Coordinator
Nicole is a graduate of Elon University, where she received her B.A. in Arts Administration with a concentration in Theatrical Writing. A southerner (without the accent), her first young adult novel 'Unadequate' was published in 2014. Her favorite mediums include screenwriting, songwriting, and personal essay. She also believes dessert should be eaten every day.
Sam is excited to join the Writopia family! Sam is a Brooklyn-based playwright. He studied Creative Writing and Drama at Ithaca College and holds an MFA in Playwriting from The New School for Drama. His plays include Standard Aptitude (Semifinalist, Eugene O'Neill New Play Conference 2015), Gordy Crashes(finalist, 2014 Stanley Drama Award), Animals (Wide Eyed Productions, winner of the Fringe NYC award for Overall Excellence in Directing, Kristin Skye Hoffmann), Brooklyn Vacancies (finalist, New Works Program at T. Schreiber Studio, New York City), Static (finalist, HotCity Theater's Greenhouse Festival, St. Louis), and Debt (Horse Trade Theater, New York City, and Dillingham Center for Performing Arts, Ithaca, NY).
Jeremy has built and implemented databases and websites for 15 years. He ran a consulting business, ABCDataworks, for six years, that brought database, website, and communications strategy to non-profits and socially minded corporate ventures. Jeremy spent a few years in the corporate world, but most of his work experience has been focused on making the world a better place by helping nonprofit organizations manage their data collection and dissemination. Jeremy has written corporate policy documents, software documentation, branding copy for websites, tutorials, and recently published a featured article of the month on Idealware.org.
Jocquelyn Downs is very excited to be a part of the Writopia family. Jackie obtained her MFA in Film from Howard University and her Bachelors of Arts in Broadcast Communications from Johnson C. Smith University. In 2011, Love Languages, her thesis film, was showcased in the Cannes International Film Festival's Short Film Corner. She's also written, directed and produced original plays and musical productions that have been produced at McGlohon Theater at Spirit Square in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jocquelyn has also worked as an Associate Producer for WSOC-TV and served as Producer for the Saturday Morning 8am Show. In her spare creative time, Jackie writes and performs spoken word poetry.
Jackie has also been working closely with students on their creative writing for ten years in Washington DC and around the country. She has developed curricula for a variety of courses and age groups ranging from middle school to college. As a high school Fine Arts instructor, over a period of six years Jackie taught courses including Creative Writing, Theater Arts, Public Speaking and Music Appreciation. She has led directing workshops at high schools in the Washington DC area and has worked as a Dramatic Arts Teaching Artist for the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in Washington DC. She is currently juggling a few creative projects that are in post production and is excited to start this next phase of her life with Writopia.
Maddison Conforti happily joined the DC Writopia team in June 2013. She graduated from DePauw University with a BA in English and Latin and has an MFA from Columbia College Chicago where she fell in love with the essay and teaching writing. Maddison's work has appeared in Eye on the World and South Loop Review. Originally from Indiana, Maddison also dabbles in literary translation and is an expert napper, wanderluster, and lover of all things Italian.
Khadijah Johnson is thrilled to be a part of the Writopia DC team! She is a native Washingtonian writer who attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Khadijah has nearly 10 years of corporate management experience and has worked as a freelance writer. She earned her BA in English from the University of Maryland and MFA in Fiction from National University, San Diego. When she is not at Writopia, Khadijah is either reading historical fiction or hard at work on her current project, a Gilded Age novel set in Washington, DC.
Amy Abrams is pleased to join Writopia Lab DC. She is an award-winning author, journalist, literary journal editor and former publishing executive at art magazines (including Art & Antiques). She has published over 200 stories, both fiction and non-fiction, contributing to The Wall Street Journal, Art in America, and Village Voice Media. She has appeared on TV and radio programs including NPR and SiriusXM, as well as lectured about publishing, art and the media to university, museum and writing conference audiences across America. www.AmyAbramsWrite.com
Cristin Terrill is a young adult novelist living in Washington DC. Her debut novel All Our Yesterdays will be published by Disney-Hyperion in the fall of 2013. She holds a BA in Drama from Vassar College and an MA in Shakespeare Studies from the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham.
Amanda joined Writopia DC in the winter of 2013. She is a fiction writer whose stories have been featured in NIB Magazine, Whiskey Paper, Black Heart Magazine and Buffalo Almanack. She received her Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education for English/Communications from Penn State University, where she won the Eddie Nichols Fiction Award for her undergraduate creative writing workshop. She went on to pursue her MFA in Creative Writing at American University. When she's not writing/reading, she's a mom to two awesome little girls, and she sells vintage clothing with her sister on Etsy and at local flea markets. She's currently at work on a collection of short stories.
InstructorAdrienne joined Writopia DC in 2013. She writes fiction and personal essays. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Skirt! Magazine, Defying Gravity, Sierra Nevada Journal, the Washington Post, and Brain, Child. Her work-in-progress is a collection of linked stories about expatriates in Kenya. A native of the District, she is an adult "foreign-service brat" who spent most of her childhood following her development-worker parents around sub-Saharan Africa. After getting a BA in creative writing from Lewis and Clark College, she joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in a Himalayan village in Nepal. Since then, she has not only picked up an MA in nonfiction, but also called Kyiv, Ukraine; Tirana, Albania and Syracuse, New York home. Happily settled in Washington now, she lives with her three kids, one husband, and one barky terrier called Thor, Dog of Thunder.
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels, including HOUSE AND HOME (Hyperion); A SIMPLE THING (HarperCollins) and LEAVING HAVEN (due out in Oct. 2013 from HarperCollins). Her non-fiction articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and other publications. She has also taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University. When she's not writing, she can be found in the gym, trying to teach herself to do pull-ups. You can find more about Kathleen's work at www.kathleenmccleary.com
Jessica Spotswood is thrilled to join Writopia DC! She is the author of BORN WICKED (Penguin, 2012) and STAR CURSED (Penguin, 2013). SISTERS' FATE, the third book in The Cahill Witch Chronicles (a YA historical fantasy trilogy) will be released in August 2014. She has a BA in English and Drama from Washington College and an MA in Theatre History & Criticism from Catholic University. She lives on Capitol Hill with her playwright husband, Stephen Spotswood. You can find Jess online at www.jessicaspotswood.com..
Daniel is the author of Flamingos Don't Wear Bathing Suits, a book of children's poetry published in 2012 by Bullmoose Books. A followup, Owls Just Don't Give A Hoot, is scheduled for release early next year. An Atlanta native and graduate of the University of Georgia, Daniel currently lives in Washington D.C., where he is working on his masters degree at the Johns Hopkins University.
Katherine is thrilled to join the Writopia team! A Tennessean at heart, she moved to Maryland to work on her MFA in Fiction Writing, which she received from the University of Maryland in 2014. She also has a MA in English from Southeast Missouri State University and a BA in English and Journalism from Union University. Her first book was a construction paper cut-out of a cat's face, containing a story about a disobedient kitten that she wrote in the 2nd grade. Since then, her writing has been published in Glasschord, Journey, and Big Muddy, and reviewed on newpages.com. As a journalist, she wrote entertainment and feature stories for small newspapers in Tennessee and Missouri. Currently, she teaches composition at the University of Maryland and Montgomery College. Katherine enjoys big cups of coffee, sushi, collecting books and journals, running and, of course, writing. She hopes to adopt a cat soon and name her after one of her favorite authors, Flannery O'Connor.
Cynthia is very excited to join the Writopia team! She has received her B.A. from Bard College and her M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. She has worked with Michael Gross, New York Times best-selling author, on 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building and Rogues Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and journals, including The Jerusalem Post, Wandermelon, VegNews, Pregnancy, Yoga Journal, Bridal Guide, and The Columbus Dispatch. Her short story "Curly" appeared in the anthology Submerged: Tales from the Basin (2008). Cynthiapublished Take a Hike: The Best 50 Routes in the Community of Madrid (Ediciones la Librería, May 2011) and started a guiding company called Hiking in The Community of Madrid, which has been written up in Gadling and the AOL guide to Madrid. She is a contributing writer toEveryDay Feminism and Gurl.com, and is hard at work on a memoir.For more check out her website at www.cynthiakane.com.
Christine Stoddard joined Writopia in July 2012 after graduating from VCUarts. As the founder of Quail Bell Press & Productions, Christine edits Quail Bell Magazine, directs documentaries, writes comics, and produces other art and media projects. In 2014, Folio Magazine named her one of the media industry's 20 visionaries in their 20s at the MediaNext Conference in New York City. Christine is also a Puffin Foundation emerging artist, a Southeast Review featured artist, a Cyberpunk Apocalypse visiting writer, and one of Style Weekly's Top 40 Under 40. Christine has edited two books of writings from Quail Bell Magazine—The Nest: An Anthology of The Unreal and Airborne: An Anthology of The Real (Brandylane Publishers). Christine also co-authored Images of America: Richmond Cemeteries (Arcadia Publishing), released in 2014, and is looking forward to the release of Once Upon a Body (Six Gallery Press) and The Hispanics of Virginia(The History Press). Christine has performed her writings at events ranging from BUNKERprojects' Performance Art Festival to the Annapolis Fringe Festival. Her films, photo media, and collages have been shown everywhere from the New York Transit Museum to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum. One of her greatest joys is working with kids to tell their stories.
Jessica joined Writopia Lab in 2012 as an instructor in Washington, DC. She is the author of the novel Grey Areas (PaperBox Books 2010) Don't Ask(Vagabondage Press 2012) and The Bleeding Crowd (Melange Books 2012) along with numerous published short stories. Outside of teaching and her own writing, Jessica has also worked in the submissions and editorial departments of a small science fiction, fantasy, and horror press (2009-2011).
Lisa Friedman writes novels, nonfiction, essays and a humor column titled Laugh Out Loud. Her work appears in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and in newspapers and magazines around the country. Lisa loves to work with writers. She coaches individuals working toward publication and has lead workshops, discussions and writing labs in elementary and high schools in MD. She earned her MA in Creative Writing from the Johns Hopkins University where she is a guest lecturer, and has won several awards for her work including Best Humorist by the Erma Bombeck Center. Lisa is looking forward to brainstorming with the creative writers at Writopia. Read about Lisa at: www.lkfriedman.com
Kelly Ann Jacobson is thrilled to be teaching at Writopia in Washington, DC, and looks forward to helping students discover the joys of crafting their own stories. Kelly is currently pursuing her MA in Fiction at Johns Hopkins University, and she is the Poetry Editor for Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine. In 2013, her novella was named a finalist in the Iron Horse Literary Review novella contest. Kelly has had or will have poems published in Wooden Teeth magazine, Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine, Coldnoon, Blue Hour Magazine, Promptly, and Poetry Pacific; fiction in The Exhibitionist Magazine and The Writing Disorder; and nonfiction in life2pointoh.com and 20somethingmagazine.com. Her work can be found at www.kellyannjacobson.com.
Sheila McMullin is a writing instructor at Writopia DC. She received her MFA in poetry from George Mason University. In 2010, Sheila lived and traveled throughout China teaching English to university students in the Shandong Province. While writing is her first love, Sheila also loves traveling to meet new people, exchanging ideas on how to live a happy life, being outside, and engaging with the imagination to learn something new! You can read some of her work in So to Speak: A feminist journal of literature and art, 1913: A Journal of Forms, YEW: A Journal of Innovative Writing and Images by Women, HER KIND: A Literary Community Powered by VIDA, The Catbird Seat Blog at the Poetry and Literature Center in the Library of Congress, and in The Lit Pub.
Program Coordinator/ Instructor/ Submissions Coordinator for the DC Metro Region of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Mason is extremely excited to join the Writopia family. He received his B.A. in Creative Writing and B.F.A in Music Performance at Western Michigan University. Currently in his third year, he is working on completing an MFA in poetry at the University of Maryland. Over the course of his teaching career, Mason has taught anything from middle-school band classes to undergraduate poetry workshops. Always shifting between his engagement with music and his passion for writing, Mason likes to think he combines the best of both worlds writing as a poet. Currently working on a collection of poems for his graduate thesis, he's never been more excited to work with the young writers and students that contribute their time to writing, reading and language. His poems are awesome and often have bears and other awesome animals in them.
Jennie Berman Eng joined the Writopia DC team in the summer of 2013. She received her MFA in Playwriting from The New School for Drama. Jennie was a playwright-in-residence at America-In-Play, and currently writes with DC Playwrights Forum. Recent plays include Exit Carolyn (Sans A Productions) at The Drilling Company in New York, Wildwood Flower (Speranza Theatre Company, 2011 Reading Series), and Cherry (Naked Angels' First Monday reading series, New York. She is the former Creative Director of Greasy Pork Chop Productions, which produced plays in New York and Los Angeles. Jennie is a Teaching Artist for Young Playwrights Theater and Ford's Theatre Target Oratory and Residency in Washington, D.C. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and the two cutest kids on the planet, Lily and Jasper.
Shelly Bell is excited to join the Writopia team as an instructor. She is an award-winning performance poet, event host at Busboys and Poets, and author of All Women are Stupid Sometimes, a contemporary tale of what women endure for love. Her poems have been published for academia in Critical Articulations of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation. Shelly has published articles on music, arts, and culture as a contributor for Brightest Young Things, Brooklyn Bodega, and also serves as editor of Straight Razor Hip-Hop. She is the founder of Women Writers Rock, an advocacy group for women writers in the DC metro area and beyond.
Stephanie Thomas is happy to join the Writopia family! She received her B.A. from Pennsylvania State University and her Master's in Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Stephanie completed her very first historical fiction manuscript during her graduate studies, and by the end of the program, she had completed two more. To date, Stephanie has two, young adult science fiction novels published: Luminosity and Lucidity, as well as young adult short fiction including The Keeper. Currently, she is concentrating on finishing up some YA projects that she's been juggling between running after a toddler. She currently resides in Maryland with her family.
Laura is thrilled to join Writopia Lab in DC! She is a teaching artist, dramaturg, writer, and occasional performer. She is the Literary Manager for Forum Theatre, and a freelance dramaturg for many theatres and projects across the country. Raleigh-based company Urban Garden Performing Arts produced her collaborative dance-theatre piece, Mark Twain's Joan of Arc: Part 1 in 2012, and Part 2 in 2013. Laura is the former Creative Development Director of the off-Broadway company Electric Pear Productions and has had the honor of working with The Public Theater, The Kennedy Center, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, The Inkwell, and The Princess Grace Awards, among others. She is a graduate of Brooklyn College and James Madison University.
Stephen is excited to be a part of the Writopia family. He is a DC-based playwright, teaching artist, and journalist. Stephen received his MFA in Playwriting from Catholic University in 2009. Produced works include: In The Forest, She Grew Fangs (Washington Rogues); We Tiresias(Best Drama, Capital Fringe Festival 2012); When the Stars Go Out (Bright Alchemy Theatre); Sisters of Ellery Hollow(Capital Fringe 2011); The Resurrectionist King (Active Cultures Theatre); Off A Broken Road (Imagination Stage); andA Cre@tion Story for Naomi (Bright Alchemy). He is a company member with Pinky Swear Productions, a frequent dramaturg at Theater J, and a member of the Forum Theatre Artist Ensemble.
Jeremy loves being a part of the Writopia family. He began as a full-time intern in Fall of 2013 and did such an amazing job working with our young writers that he's come on board as a part-time teaching assistant. Jeremy graduated from Gallaudet University in 2013 with a Bachelor's in Communications, and a minor in Ethics. During this time he also self published two books of poetry: Amazin Transcendence and Liberation. He is currently pursuing his Masters of Arts at Saint Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland and is excited to be working with Writopia students again this fall.
Jessica McHugh is thrilled to be a part of Writopia Lab. She's a novelist, playwright, and short story writer with seventeen books published by small presses in the last seven years, including the first three novels in her edgy young adult series, the DARLA DECKER DIARIES. Her play, FOOLS CALL IT FATE, won the Mobtown Theatre playwriting competition in 2010 and was named "Best New Play of 2011" by Baltimore Broadway World. While crafting fiction is Jessica's biggest passion in life, she derives immense joy from inspiring and encouraging the creativity of others. She's honored to join the Writopia Lab family as an instructor this summer. For more information on her ever-expanding McHughniverse, please visit www.JessicaMcHughBooks.com or excellent publishers like Post Mortem Press and Evolved Publishing.
Melanie Howard is excited to join Writopia Lab as an instructor in the Greater Washington DC area. Melanie is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared online and in print in Time.com, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, SELF, Seventeen, Parenting, Good Housekeeping and other major publications. She is the co-author of the satirical novel, Queen of the Court (2013) and her second novel, a mystery set at a girls' boarding school in 1963, is in the publication process. Melanie is an honors graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in General and Comparative Literature. She loves writing for a living for many reasons, but mostly because she gets to stay home with her dog, Rocket.
James Kelly is a rising senior at St. Mary's College of Maryland studying English and Film. After studying a semester abroad in Oxford, England he's looking forward to interning with Writopia Lab this summer. James is an avid supporter of the arts and enjoys working with children. In his spare time he writes poetry, watches samurai movies, and enjoys the art of cooking.
Maria is excited to join the Writopia family! She is currently a junior journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park, and loves to write, read and eat. Maria is also the chief copy editor and staff reporter at UMD's literary arts publication, The Writer's Bloc. She has freelanced for several campus publications and interned for a daily news website. Maria looks forward to working with Writopia DC team and hopes to contribute as much as she can!
Amanda is super jazzed about being a part of Writopia Lab as an intern. She is currently a freshman at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD and enjoys writing fiction. Amanda is also a former Writopia student from the NY North Metro Region and is excited to be back in workshops in this new role.
Iain is thrilled to be interning with Writopia Lab. He is a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park and an active member of the Jiménez-Porter Writers' House. He loves to write prose, emphasizing in short story fiction. Last summer, Iain travelled to Ireland to study the author James Joyce, where he gained a passion for Irish literature. He's most likely to be spotted at his university's library reading gigantic novels, but you may find him skiing or playing soccer with his friends on the weekends.
Los Angeles Regional Manager/Instructor
Jan has been teaching with Writopia Los Angeles for over two years and loves working with all of our amazing writers across the city! Jan's poetry and reviews have been published in Weave Magazine, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Rio Grande Review, The Raven Chronicles, and The Exquisite Corpse. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University and a B.A. in English from Louisiana State University, where she won the Dara Wier Award for Poetry. Jan has worked with youth in various capacities for over sixteen years, as a camp counselor, writing and English tutor, and creative writing instructor at NYU.
Program and Events Coordinator, Instructor
Lyndsay is excited to join Writopia LA! She holds a B.S. in journalism from Florida International University, and she has participated in fiction writing workshops at New York University and through the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop. Currently, she is an MFA candidate at Antioch University. Her opinion-editorial essays have been published online on Medium, Thought Catalog, and xoJane. Lyndsay writes a weekly blog and is presently at work on her first novel.
A recent transplant from Writopia DC, Steve is thrilled to be joining the Writopia West squad. Steve's work as a playwright has been honored by the Kennedy Center and Sundance Lab (winner of the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting), placed as a Finalist for New Dramatists' Princess Grace Award for Playwriting, and published by Smith & Kraus. As an arts educator, Steve has also taught fiction and playwriting for the award-winning Young Playwrights' Theater, Arena Stage, Imagination Stage, and the University of Maryland. Steve studied creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania (B.A.) and the Catholic University of America (M.F.A.). He and his wife love Los Angeles, and their two tiny dogs love not living under threat of snow burial.
Shabnam Piryaei joined the Writopia LA team in the summer of 2013. Shabnam is the author of ode to fragile. Her writing has been awarded the Poets & Writers Amy Award for Poetry and the Transport of the Aim Poetry Prize, as well as grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her short films have been screened at film festivals and art galleries in the U.S. and internationally.
Michelle joined Writopia LA the summer of 2013. Her prose pieces have been published in DOGZPLOT, jmww, and Clerestory Journal of the Arts. Her plays have been developed and/or produced in New York City (New Dramatists); Los Angeles (Hollywood Fringe Festival and the Pacific Resident Theatre); Chicago (Indie Boots Theatre Festival); Great Barrington, MA (Berkshire Fringe Festival); Providence, RI (Production Workshop, the McCormack Family Theater, and the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts); and Nova Scotia, Canada (Acadia Theatre Company). Michelle graduated from Brown University with degrees in "Literary Arts" and "Theatre—Writing for Performance" and is a recipient of the Weston Award for Playwriting and the SCCC Creative Writing Award for College Students. Her first novel will be released on Amazon in 2014. When not working with Writopia, Michelle teaches English and history at Fusion Academy Los Angeles, an alternative private middle and high school, and is part of the Los Angeles playwrights' collective Fell Swoop Playwrights.
Dara Kelly Ewing, a writer and teacher originally from Pittsburgh, joined Writopia in summer 2015. In 2013, she received an MFA in Fiction from the University of Alabama. Past positions include: Fiction Editor for the Black Warrior Review, music critic for the London-based music magazine, The Stool Pigeon, and creative writing teacher for students of all ages in Alabama, New Zealand, and Morocco. She has received fellowships from the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project and The University of Alabama. Her cross-genre work includes poetry, fiction, documentary film, and stand-up comedy. Writopia has allowed her to connect to young writers in a way that transcends the student/mentor relationship. Since she gets to experience the generative process in real-time, she finds herself ever-awestruck by the beauty, cleverness, and honesty Writopia students exhibit.
Erika joined the Writopia Los Angeles team in the summer of 2015. Before moving back to California, she worked on both the editorial and the agenting side of the New York publishing industry for many years. In Los Angeles, she has been a fiction editor at the LA Review of Books and an arts educator for organizations like LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, and Franklin Education Services. Her writing has appeared in the LA Review of Books, ZYZZYVA, The Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing her teaching certification to become a high school English teacher.
Jessica is excited to join Writopia Lab. Her YA fantasy trilogy will be published by Random House Children's Books beginning in 2016. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, holding a degree in communications as well as a certificate from the Creative Writing for the Media program. She lives in Los Angeles and loves coffee. A lot.
Jennifer is thrilled to join the Writopia team in Los Angeles. She received her BFA in Writing, Literature, & Publishing from Emerson College and her MFA in Fiction from Boston University, where she also taught writing for several years. Her fiction, essays, and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Salon, PUNCH, Food & Wine, LA Weekly, Bust, Lemon, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a novel, a cookbook, and several film and television projects, and she also teaches writing to undergraduates at the Academy of Musical and Dramatic Arts.
Cory joined Writopia in the Fall of 2014. Cory is a playwright currently based in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the Playwrights Union. He is the recipient of a McKnight Advancement Grant, two Jerome fellowships from the Playwrights' Center, and a Jerome Travel and Study Grant. He is a co-writer of That High Lonesome Sound, which will premiere at the 2015 Humana Festival. Most recently, The Killing of Michael X premiered at Jackalope Theatre in Chicago, The End of Beauty was developed at the 2014 Cape Cod Theater Project, and A Disappearance in Two Parts had a workshop production at HERE Arts Center in New York. In 2011, Little Eyes had its world premiere at The Guthrie Theater, where Cory has been commissioned twice to write plays for the Guthrie's BFA students. More info at www.coryhinkle.com.
Kirsten is thrilled to be a part of Writopia! She's an author, editor, and travel writer new to the LA area. In search of transcendent backdrops for her novels, she's hiked ancient ruins in Cambodia, dived with wild dolphins in Belize (one totally looked her in the eye), slept in a Slovenian jail cell, and navigated numerous desert apocalypses (usually in face paint and combat boots). She's the author of the young adult novels LIKE MANDARIN and WANDERLOVE with Delacorte Press/Random House Children's Books, and the middle-grade novel WATCH THE SKY with Disney-Hyperion.
Korama is so psyched to be a member of the Writopia team! She is a writer (plays, short stories, and poetry) and actor originally from Los Angeles, CA. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies from Brown University. Korama splits her time between acting, working on the West Coast Premier of her solo show Mixtape for New Year's Eve, blogging for various feminist and woman-centric publications (LA FPI, Geek Girl Authority), penning her first young adult novel, writing collaborative theatre pieces with Fell Swoop Playwrights, and co-founding a writers' colony for young women called The Grange.
Carley is delighted to be an intern at Writopia Lab in Los Angeles. She is originally from Kansas City, Missouri. This fall she moved to L.A. to pursue a B.F.A. in Writing for Screen and Television at USC. Before studying at USC she took many creative writing classes, studied screenwriting at Interlochen Arts Camp, and was the copy editor for a literary magazine. Now she enjoys spending her time senior producing for USC's live cooking show, Delish, and writing on USC's news parody show, The Breakdown.
Cory is excited to begin 2015 as an Intern with Writopia! She is currently a student at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, studying English and Comparative Literature. Cory works for the student newspaper, The Occidental Weekly, as an editor and writer. In high school, she wrote for and edited student publications including the newspaper and literary magazine. She is originally from San Diego.
Jane is so excited to join the Writopia team as an intern this year! She is currently a sophomore majoring in Psychology and minoring in Interdisciplinary Writing at Occidental College in Eagle Rock. She is also a Senior Writer for the school's newspaper, The Occidental Weekly. In high school, she was the editor of her school's literary magazine and the layout editor for her school newspaper. She is originally from Brooklyn, New York.
Andie Riffer is thrilled to be part of the Writopia team! She recently graduated Indiana University with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing. While studying in Ireland, she volunteered with two non-profit organizations, SUAS and Fighting Words, which focused on improving literacy and creative writing in the community. Andie's poetry has been published in Canvas Magazine, and she recently worked at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, where she talked to Mushu every day.
Grace is grateful to be a part of the Writopia team! She is a senior majoring in Narrative Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. She is currently working on her capstone project—a speculative fiction screenplay. Most of her experience and interests lie in filmmaking as a form of storytelling. In the past she has volunteered for other nonprofit organizations that foster a passion for creative writing in the youth. She is a born and bred L.A. native.
Léna began teaching Writopia Lab workshops in Manhattan in 2009, then went on to bring the program to New York City's northern suburbs in 2010. Léna is the author of the YA novel, Edges, published by FSG. She co edited the award-winning Girl's Write Now anthology, First Lines. Her writing was featured in the essay collection for middle school kids and their teachers: Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Essays to Devour: Your Favorite Authors Take on the Dreaded Essay Assignment. In 2014, Léna was recognized by the Scholastic Awards "as an outstanding educator whose dedication, commitment, and guidance are represented by student work selected for national honors." Léna earned her BA from Barnard, studying English and Italian literature, and her MA in Drama Therapy from NYU. Mentoring has long been the connective tissue in Léna's life, whether through her work with at-risk adolescents in Utah, California, and New York; or through her own writing discipline, as fostered by her late grandmother, author Madeleine L'Engle. It was her grandmother who taught Léna to transform the solitary nature of writing into a sacred sense of community, where her art and the art of others can flourish. You can visit Léna at www.lenaroybooks.com.
Veera Hiranandani is the author of several works for children including the novel, The Whole Story of Half a Girl (Delacorte Press), which was named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book and a South Asian Book Award Finalist. She is also the author of the upcoming chapter book series, Phoebe G. Green (Grosset & Dunlap). She received her MFA in fiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College. A former book editor at Simon & Schuster and Montessori teacher, Veera is now focused on writing more books, teaching, and family life. She is so pleased to be part of the Writopia Lab team! You can learn more about Veera at www.veerahiranandani.com.
Sarah Darer Littman is an award-winning author of books for young people. Her first novel, Confessions of a Closet Catholic, won the 2006 Sydney Taylor Book Award for Older Readers. Her novel Life, After was a 2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Book. She is also the author of Purge, named one of Bank Street College of Education's 2010 Best Books of the Year and Want to go Private? a 2012 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers and a Bank Street College Best Book for 2012. Her YA novel Backlash will be published by Scholastic in April 2015 and she's one of 12 authors chosen by CT Humanities to write "The Great CT Caper", an online mystery serial. Sarah also writes middle grade series fiction. In addition to writing for young people, Sarah is an award-winning political columnist for CTNewsJunkie.com and an adjunct professor in the MFA program at Western CT State College. Visit her online at http://sarahdarerlittman.com, http://wanttogoprivate.com and on twitter @sarahdarerlitt.
DONNA LEE MIELE joined Writopia Lab in 2014 as an instructor at Cuppa Pulp Writers' Space in Nanuet, New York. She also teaches in Westchester. Donna writes primarily fiction and non-fiction (though she's been spotted enjoying poetry slams and open mics in Nyack). She recently finished a full-length fiction manuscript based on her family's life in Mindanao, Philippines during World War II, and is at work on her second novel. She received her MFA from Manhattanville College, has been published in MendaCity Review, blogs for Magnificent Nose, and has work forthcoming in Atticus Review. As owner-manager of Cuppa Pulp Writers' Space, Donna leads writing salons and workshops, organizes and facilitates author events, and just generally enjoys stirring the local writing soup, along with her Rockland County cohorts. She's looking forward to supporting a new generation of writers with Writopia Lab!
Anu Amaran (pen name: A. Anupama) is excited to join the team of Writopians, young and old, in its Northern Metro labs as of the summer, 2015. Anu is a poet, critic, essayist, and translator whose work has appeared in Fourteen Hills, CutBank, Numéro Cinq Magazine, Tulane Review, and elsewhere. She studied at Northwestern University and Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she received her MFA in writing. She currently organizes literary community and is a founding editor of the literary journal River River, riverriver.org. She lives and writes in Nyack, New York. Find Anu's musing at seranam.com.
Cara Stevens joined the Writopia team in the Fall of 2015. She has written 9 books for children including Dragon School, a midgrade novel, and 3 books for Nickelodeon. She has designed educational video games and interactive storybooks, written for teen blogs like Kidzworld and BeingGirl, and has created ads and written articles for major publications. She studied Psychology at Vassar College and earned a Master of Arts degree in Communication from New York University. She is thrilled to join the Writopia community and hopes to learn a lot from the young writers in her workshops! She loves watching Doctor Who, Gilmore Girls and Animaniacs with her kids, and has read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 17 times and counting. Cara lives in Connecticut with her husband, two children, and loud, white, fluffy dog Oliver.
A writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, PJ DeGenaro is overjoyed to be joining the staff of Writopia's Northern Metro labs as of the summer, 2015. PJ's writing has appeared in numerous publications including The Adirondack Review, The Westchester Review, and The Hudson Independent. Her short story, "Everything Is Not Yet Lost," was awarded "Best Thing We've Read Today" by The Furnace Review. PJ earned her BA in Fine Art from Hofstra University, and her MFA in Fiction at Manhattanville College. She has taught academic writing at the college level, and has developed and facilitated creative writing workshops for adult education programs.
Erika K. Stanley joined the Writopia team in the fall of 2015. Erika holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from the University of Connecticut and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Manhattanville College. She is the 2014 Manhattanville Writing Alumni Contest winner. Erika has been published with the Manhattanville Review, Woman Around Town, and Cyclamens and Swords Publishing. She has a professional background in Technical Writing and Marketing, and attended the Fairfield County cohort of the Leadership Development Roundtable, where she earned a certification in project management. Erika leads community adult creative writing workshops in Connecticut, teaches expository writing at Manhattanville College, and blogs and writes book reviews at www.ErikaKimberly.com.
Stephanie is thrilled to help kids and teens cultivate and deepen a love of writing at Writopia. Stephanie's
literary essays and book reviews have appeared in the following literary journals and anthologies: Brain, Child:
The Magazine for Thinking Mothers; Brain, Child's Greatest Hits; Brevity; Creative Nonfiction; Italian Americana; MotherVerse; and The Yorktown Anthology of New Writers (Gotham Press). Stephanie has a BA in
Theatre from the University of Colorado (1986) and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College
(2000).Stephanie also works as a freelance writer/editor/researcher in the realms of journalism, web content,
nonfiction book manuscripts, and film/television project development. In a teaching capacity she has taught
creative nonfiction writing online through the Creative Nonfiction Foundation. She has also run script analysis
seminars at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts for graduate and undergraduate film and dramatic writing students.
She lives in Katonah, New York, with her two children, Gary, 17, and Zoe, 13.
Operations Manager
Rob is Writopia Lab's administrator for the New York Metro North labs. Having worked more than a decade in New York film production, Rob says he's perfectly qualified to run errands, file paperwork, and tinker on computers. And because Rob shares Writopia's vision of building an environment in which to foster the creativity of teens and kids, he now runs, files, and tinkers with more joy than he did before.
Alexa Salvato began with Writopia Lab as an intern in 2013, and is now thrilled to be on board
as an assistant instructor. As a high school senior, Alexa received a national American Voices
award from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Currently a student at Ithaca College in the
Park Scholarship program as a journalism major, Alexa was the instructor of a 2014 Writopia
Mentor program for tweens and teens at Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca. NY. She
was also an editorial intern and daily blogger for BUST Magazine and a freelance reporter for
the North Salem News during summer 2015. Alexa's essays, articles, and poetry have been
published in Penned Parenthood Literary Magazine, Chronogram Magazine, Ithaca College's
Buzzsaw Magazine, and New Moon Girl Media.
Emeline is proud to join Writopia. She first heard about the program while attending Purchase College where she has since graduated with a BA in Literature. She is the recipient of the Jim Greenwood Prize for Best Senior Project in the Humanities and the Ronnie Scharfman Award for Diaspora Studies in the Humanities. Emeline is thrilled to join a community who appreciates writing as much as she does. She looks forward to sharing this love with others and learning more about people and their writing processes. Emeline is grateful to have the chance to combine her love for teaching with her love for writing. She has contributed articles to Kids, Code, and Computer Science, an online magazine that specializes in teaching children, parents, teachers, and technology enthusiasts the art of computer programming and design. Emeline has a keen interest in New Journalism as well as writing on her personal blog. When time permits, Emeline enjoys writing short stories that are often inspired by her crazy dreams. When she isn't reading or writing, one might find her watching Netflix, horseback riding, engaging in DIY projects, baking, or relaxing amongst nature with her animal friends.
Miranda is happy to be working with Writopia in Chicago. She is a poet and creative non-fiction writer whose work makes use of new and experimental forms, as well as more traditional, narrative forms. Her work has been published in literary magazines including South Dakota Review, Apple Valley Review and Hoot Magazine. She has done performances of her work with Hi-TypO and at Prop Theatre. She has a non-fiction book forthcoming with Meekling Press this summer. Miranda studied writing at Knox College (BA) and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA). She has taught writing at various colleges and organizations throughout Chicagoland and has worked as an editor for Upstairs at Duroc in Paris, and Collected, the SAIC graduate publication.
Diane is thrilled to be part of the Writopia team. She writes literary short stories and especially loves experimenting with extremely short stories. More than two dozen of her short stories have appeared in various print and online literary magazines, and she is in the process of editing two novels for younger readers. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston and has an MAT in Elementary Education from the University of Chicago. She's taught or tutored students ranging from kindergarten all the way through college in any number of subjects. But nothing makes her happier than working with students of any age on creative writing projects. You can find out more about her and her writing at www.digillette.com.
Akiva has been interning at Writopia since 2013, and he is excited to be returning for another summer. In high school, Akiva attended workshops at Writopia and won a Gold Key from the Scholastic awards. He currently studies English Literature in Yeshiva University, where he is a rising junior. He works on the school's broadcast news program as director and video editor. In his free time, he can be found wishing he knew how to play an upright bass.
Zach is currently a senior at Montreal's McGill University studying English Literature and Psychology. His poetry has been featured in the McGill associated magazines Steps and The Veg. He is thrilled at the opportunity to combine his two loves, teaching and writing, and is eager to give back to a community that has already done so much for him.
Sarah is a rising junior at Haverford College and is excited to be interning at Writopia this summer! She is an English Major with a concentration in Creative Writing and works in the Writing Center on campus. She is also on the editorial board of the campus literature magazine. When she's not reading or writing she enjoys spending her time taking walks, playing video games, and spending time with her friends. She also attempts to write a novel every November during National Novel Writing Month, but that's a different story.
Teddy Becker-Jacob is thrilled to be part of the Writopia team as the development intern. During his time as a Writopia writer, his play "Drunk and Armed" was featured in Writopia's second ever Worldwide Plays Festival, and he received recognition from the Scholastic Awards for his plays, essays, and senior portfolio. As Writopia's development intern, Teddy drafts grant proposals and promotional material in addition to helping coordinate fundraising efforts. In 2013 and 2014, he received the Community Development Award at Writopia's annual benefit in recognition of his work. He hopes that by broadening the reach of Writopia's innovative programming, he can help provide a home for cerebral young people from all backgrounds. Teddy recently graduated from Stuyvesant High School and will attend Stanford University next year. In his free time, he plays the banjo.
Ross is an intern at Writopia and an English Major at NYU. Ross loves writing and helping others discover their love for writing as well. He has extensive coursework in english literature and theory and spends a lot of time in writing workshops as well. In his experience he has found that the only thing better than telling stories is hearing them!
Write to Recognition Mentor
Alicia is very excited to work with students at Writopia Lab as an intern in New York City. She is an aspiring novelist and short story writer. She is currently a student studying English and Creative Writing at New York University. As a blackbelt martial artist, Alicia discovered and fell in love with the role of teacher, and has since decided that teaching is one of the greatest joys in life. She is thrilled to expand that role and combine her two great loves of teaching and writing while working with young writers at Writopia.
Alex Braslavsky is excited to join the Writopia NY team. Alex is a sophomore undergraduate majoring in English at Columbia University. A resident of the Writers House on campus, she is a California Arts Scholar and had the privilege of participating in the Iowa Young Writers Program in 2013. She has studied poetry under Traci Gourdine, Emily Fragos, and Timothy Donnelly. In addition to writing poems, she also choreographs, and is interested in the relationship between the written word and wordless media.
Fiona is excited to be joining the Writopia team as an intern in 2015! She is currently a first year student at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, pursuing a concentration in playwriting and dramatic literature. Since she was young, Fiona has loved theatre as well as writing fiction and poetry, and eventually discovered her passion for playwriting in high school. Since then, several of her short plays have been performed in festivals in Massachusetts and New York. When she is not writing, Fiona acts, dances, and works as a circulations assistant for NYU's newspaper. She always carries at least one notebook with her in case inspiration hits and loves to work with and be inspired by other writers!
Emma is a film editing intern at Writopia, supporting our film program. She is currently a freshman studying Film & Television at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is an award winning filmmaker, including The New Jersey Filmmakers of Tomorrow's first James Gandolfini Award. She has been filming and editing her own films for five years, and has been a movie buff all of her life. She is extremely excited to be able to share her passion with young writers, as well as help young filmmakers film and edit their own unique films.
Madeline Taylor is a rising senior at Barnard College of Columbia University studying English and Environmental Science. At Barnard, she is the manager of the Barnard Babysitting Agency, a student-run childcare service for parents in NYC. In her spare time, she also works on student theater productions; her most recent project was working as editor, contributing writer, and stage manager for a student-written collection of monologues. She is thrilled to be joining the Writopia team so she can share her love of writing with kids in the NYC area.
Kholiswa is excited to be joining the Writopia Team this winter. She is currently a sophomore at Bennington College and studies creative writing, literature and theater. Kholiswa has interned with Penguin Random House and is currently part of the selection committee for Bennington's literary journal, The Silo. In high school, she tutored Spanish and directed middle school plays. Kholiswa is from South Africa and Cape Verde and can speak Portuguese and Spanish.
Stephen Cardone joined the Writopia team as a film intern in 2016. He is a filmmaker, writer, and musician from Long Island, New York. He graduated from The New School in May of 2015 with a degree in Non-Fiction. His work has been published in Resource Magazine, 11 and 1/2, and online with Baeble Music. Recently, he has worked with Storyville Films on their latest feature length documentaries, which have premiered at the Rome and Hamptons Film Festivals.
Scott is honored to join the Writopia team after eight years with the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, in which he served a program director for both the New York City Region and the National Scholastic Awards. He has also taught creative writing for the Ghana Literacy Project and served as the head writer for a State Assembly campaign in Wisconsin. Originally hailing from Holt, MI, Scott has a BA in English Literature from Michigan State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from New School University. He loves Golden Age Science Fiction and Virginia Woolf. His short stories have been published in the Red Cedar Review and Red China Magazine.
Scott has been a champion of all things Writopian since 2007. He is the super nice guy who has warmly helped our teens navigate The Scholastic Awards process from submission to celebration each year over the past eight years. He started here at Writopia NYC on Monday morning and has already bravely taken on key projects!
Rachel is honored to join the Writopia team as an intern this summer. She grew up in Boston and currently studies English, Creative Writing and Studio Art at Brandeis University, with emphases on poetry and sculpture. She was awarded a Scholastic Gold Key for poetry in 2013, and has since been published in Brandeis's literary magazine Laurel Moon. She spent last summer writing and workshopping abroad at the Prague Summer Program for Writers, and attended various writing programs and workshops throughout high school. She is so excited to share her love of writing and creative arts education with the writers of Writopia!
Scott began working for Writopia Lab in October in 2013 as an editorial intern managing Writopia's online Magazine, The (Parenthetical). Now, Scott serves as an Operations Assistant as well as the National Editorial Coordinator for Writopia's newly launched literary magazines, The Ellipsis... and The (Parenthetical). He was born in Chicago, IL, graduated in 2012 from Boston University with a degree in Film/TV Screenwriting, and has traveled to many places in between. He keeps himself busy by planning the next great adventure, whether on the page or out in the world.
Tom is an Operations Specialist at Writopia Lab. Tom has worked in higher education, business consulting and creative management. He is also a is a seasoned professional writer. Tom studied Philosophy and Peace Studies at Siena College and earned an M.S. in Communication and Rhetoric at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. At Rensselaer, he became Creative Director of a research group that created interactive multimedia learning software. He also worked on a variety of K-12 multimedia initiatives and taught a graduate level seminar for teachers on technology in the classroom. As an undergraduate, his fiction was published in the Siena literary journal The Sphere. In a past life, Tom studied with Marilyn Robinson and Amy Hempel at New York State Writers Institute Graduate Creative Writing Workshop at Skidmore College. He has written and edited for the literary magazine Pavement Saw, Guitar School Magazine, Hudson Valley Writers Guild and Scyre. While living outside Boston, he wrote about the arts and nightlife for the Boston Phoenix publication Stuff @ Night. And, during a more than 15-year association, Tom published countless feature length articles, interview pieces and reviews on music , culture and the arts for the alternative newsweekly Metroland in New York's Capital region.


text:
At Gemvara, we believe that the jewelry you wear should be one of a kind, like you. That's why we make each piece to order, one at a time, just the way you want it. Choose garnet and white gold or black onyx and platinum: it's your choice. Mix and match gems and precious metals for a look that's exactly you. It's jewelry for all life's occasions, from a wedding or holiday to your own personal milestones and celebrations. Celebrate Valentine's Day with a romantic gift of a personalized piece of jewelry that shows how much you care. Gemvara uses only the highest quality materials to craft your streamlined jewelry design with meticulous attention to detail. Our precious metals are recycled or responsibly mined. Our wide selection of streamlined jewelry by Randy Dixon, Damon Washington, Carl Ansley, and other talented designers means you can find jewelry that's exactly your style. You can also shop by style, choosing our Scrolls & Patterns, Claddagh, or Geometric Collections. Gemvara's fine quality streamlined jewelry is designed to be passed down for generations to come, crafted by hand in the United States.
We can help right away. Chat with a jewelry expert now!

subset: commoncrawl