JET alum heads Writopia Lab, creative writing nonprofit in D.C.
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This just in from JETAA DC:
Hi fellow JET alums,
I’ve just gotten a job as the DC director of a creative writing nonprofit called Writopia Lab (www.Writopialab.org/writopia-washington-dc.html) which holds writing workshops for kids and teens. The organization is based in NYC and is brand new to this area, so I’m trying to spread the word about summer workshops. I know that many of you are involved in schools and arts/education organizations, so if you know of lists/folks to pass this info onto, could you please do so? And let me know? I really appreciate any help you can give, as well as any advice for spreading this great organization to Washington! (Contacts at schools / local publications especially appreciated!)
Thanks so much!
Kathy Crutcher (Gifu ’00-’01)
***
Highly Acclaimed Writing Workshop for Kids Comes to DC!The NYC-based award-winning Writopia Lab (www.WritopiaLab.org) is coming this spring and summer to Washington DC to offer kids (ages 8-18) creative writing workshops! Visit our website at www.Writopialab.org/writopia-washington-dc.html to see our SUMMER schedule, history, mission, and reviews. Or call Rebecca at 212-706-1239 for more information!
HOW WE WORK: Workshops meet daily for 5 or 10 days; Each workshop enrolls a maximum of 6 participants and is led by a published, award-winning writer and experienced teacher; The workshops, organized by genre and age group, are peppered with original and fun writing exercises, but the primary focus is always on writing and completing excellent pieces. (Workshops for our youngest writers, ages 8-10, focus on developing creative expression, completing at least one short piece, and having fun!)
THE RESULTS: Each participant leaves the workshop with at least one polished piece of original writing. (Imagine finally finishing that story?) Twice a year all participants are invited to read their work in public at a local bookstore! In 2008 and 2009, our writers won more national Scholastic Writing awards than did any other group of kids in the country.
“The summer workshop was an amazing experience! While expressing your creativity and building your skills, you were chilling and laughing the whole time! I am so glad I was a part of it… My work began to transform to art.”
–Milana, 2008 Scholastic National Gold Key Winner, Memoir 2007 Scholastic Regional Gold Key Winner, Memoir Age 15, The Beacon School,
THE PEOPLE:
Kathy Crutcher
DC Director, Writing Instructor
Kathy @ WritopiaLab.org (No spaces)
Kathy Crutcher joined Writopia Lab in March 2009. She received an MFA in Creative Writing (’06) from the University of Arizona in both fiction and creative nonfiction, and has taught composition and creative writing at the University of Kentucky, the University of Arizona, and through the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY) program. Kathy has also read for various literary publications, including The Atlantic, The Sonora Review, and Limestone, and will serve on the national panel of judges for the 2009 Parent Teacher Association (PTA) “Reflections” Literature Contest. Her writing has earned her an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, fellowships to writing programs in Prague and Kenya, as well as accolades from contests such as the Glimmer Train Fiction Open and The New Millennium Writing Awards. Kathy is thrilled to be part of Writopia and looks forward to many good reads in DC!
Rebecca Wallace-Segall
National Director, Writing Instructor
Rebecca @ WritopiaLab.org
Teaching History
Rebecca founded WritopiaLab in April 2007, currently directs the national organization, and teaches writing workshops in New York and occasionally in Greenwich, CT. Rebecca has won multiple teaching awards including the 2008 National Gold Apple Teacher Award for “submitting the most outstanding group of submissions on the national level” in the
Scholastic Art & Writing event. 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 was awarded recognition from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as an “outstanding educator” in 2006 and 2007. (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, The Katherine Gibbs School, and at Gotham Writers’ Workshop. 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 participates in the judging of several national youth writing competitions (in which her students are not involved).
Writings
Rebecca began writing for publications in 1997 as an intern at The Village Voice. Over the next ten years, she contributed five cover stories (and other pieces) to the Voice, served as Senior Editor at Psychology Today Magazine, contributed op-eds and thought pieces to The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, The Nation, and New York Newsday, and contributed to dozens of other magazines and newspapers including New York Magazine, Salon.com, and Spin. She won Salon’s “Best People Story of the Year Award” for “Love Labor’s Flossed” and received recognition for other pieces as well. 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. A full-length comedic screenplay she co-wrote is currently being represented by The Dorothy Palmer Agency.
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