Franklin WITS Reading Packs the Bipartisan Cafe
On a drizzly Tuesday evening, the Bipartisan Cafe was warm and buzzing with energy for the Franklin High School WITS reading. Throughout the semester, students worked with Lisa Eisenberg and Chuck Carlise to create and revise prose and comics. The comics were projected onto a screen as students guided the audience through the panels. Thanks [...]
Lincoln Students Read at the Portland Art Museum
It was a packed house in the Sondland/Durant Trustee Boardroom of the Portland Art Museum on the evening of May 15. Friends, family, and community members came to listen to poetry and prose by Lincoln High School students, who had worked with WITS writers-in-residence Amanda Gersh, Cindy Williams Gutierrez, and Joe Rogers. These writers taught [...]
WITS Reading for Roosevelt & Open Meadow Students
Students from Roosevelt and Open Meadow High School had a beautiful, sunny day for their boisterous end-of-semester WITS reading at Girasole Pizza in St. Johns. Writers-in-residence Ramiza Koya and Jonathan Hill spoke about working with students, and Hill helped explain the narrative and visual aspects of creating comics. Many of the students’ pieces contained a [...]
Metropolitan Learning Center’s Poetry Slam Finals
Last Thursday, a crowd packed into Literary Arts for Metropolitan Learning Center’s poetry slam final. Students were competing for the top three spots and a chance to compete in this year’s Verselandia!, the all-PPS high school poetry slam, happening April 30 at the Wonder Ballroom. It was a lively night, with the crowd eagerly cheering [...]
WITS Reading for Benson HS at Broadway Books
Broadway Books was packed last night with a lively crowd for the WITS end-of-residency reading for Benson High School. Students from Elisa Wong’s class worked with writer Ramiza Koya, and students in Steve Naganuma’s radio class worked with spoken word artist Desmond Spann. Students read personal essays, fiction, and spoken word poetry, and their pieces [...]
WITS Reading for Cleveland Students at TaborSpace
Students presented both prose and comics at the WITS end-of-residency celebration for Cleveland students at Taborspace. Their audience included several community members and parents, who laughed, gasped, and applauded warmly throughout the evening. At one point, the audience was invited to read along with the student’s piece in the chapbooks that were provided at each [...]
Wilson Students Read at Annie Bloom’s Books
It was quite a reading for Wilson students at Annie Bloom’s Books on Thursday night. The poems, prose, and plays that students read–in both Spanish and English–ran a gamut of emotions, from sadness and mourning in pieces about a car crash to laughter and sass in a series of pieces written about being a cat, [...]
Madison Students Read at Bipartisan Cafe
On a chilly January evening, the audience at Bipartisan cafe gave each of the Madison students a warm reception as they read their prose, poetry, and plays. Students worked during the fall semester with a WITS writer-in-resident to create and revise their pieces, and a reading is the culmination of the residency. Thanks to all [...]
Cleveland, Madison and Wilson Student Readings in January
Writers in the Schools (WITS) will be hosting end-of-residency student readings for Madison, Wilson, and Cleveland High Schools at local bookstores and coffee shops this month. Students have spent the fall semester working with a professional writer-in-residence to create and revise poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. All readings are free and open to the public; we [...]
Celebrating Firsts at our 11-12 WITS Anthology Reading!
Our 2011-12 WITS Anthology Reading at Powell’s Books on Tuesday, Nov. 4 included some exciting firsts for the Writers in the Schools program. This year’s anthology is our first bilingual one, with the title and several poems printed in both Spanish and English, which meant our launch party featured readers in both languages. We were [...]
