W.o.o.t.s.

Our second year of matching volunteer mentors with high school students at Franklin High School was a great success! Student interest was even higher this year, with 37 students receiving one-on-one help with their college and scholarship application essays. We’re excited to be expanding the program to Madison High School this year, with a mentoring session planned for November 29.

Many of this year’s mentors are enthusiastic returns from the previous event. We also have a great new crop of volunteers who were inspired to help after reading Susie Bartley’s essay in the fall edition of Literary Arts’ newsletter, Words Matter. With backgrounds as lawyers, teachers, psychologists, writers, artists, philanthropists, and doctors, our volunteers bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to share with students.

Despite the blustery, rainy afternoon outside, the Franklin school library was alight with positive conversations. Students answered a questionnaire to spark topic ideas, and mentors worked on helping them craft their experiences and aspirations into thoughtful and unique pieces.

This November, Figment is teaming up with The National Writing Project to sponsor the Junot Diaz Writing Contest, judged by Pulitzer prize-winning author Junot Diaz.  Figment is an online writing community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors.  

            Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, stands out for his masterful, compelling command of voice; his writing is instantly recognizable as his own. This unique and impressive control of tone has inspired Figment to sponsor a fiction-writing contest which encourages each writer to develop his or her own distinct voice.

The contest is open to writers over the age of 13 in the United States and submissions are being accepted through November 30^th, 2011. Finalists will receive signed copies of Diaz’ books, and the winner will receive a special Oscar Wao Prize Pack You can read the contest rules in full, here.

The theme of this contest is Creating The Narrative Voice, and Figment offers three different prompts to choose from, all geared toward the development of a strong narrative voice:

First Person:
Without naming or describing your narrator, write a story in which you make the narrator’s age, personality, and philosophy/outlook on life evident through his or her voice.

Second Person:
Write a story about an ordinary day in the life of an extraordinary person, such as the president, supermodel, or a homeless boy. Narrate the story entirely in the second person.

Third Person:
Write a story in which you describe a person using only attributes generally considered negative (for example a character who is usually late, sloppy, and mean), but through the voice of your narrator, make that character likable.

In addition to selecting the contest winners, Junot Diaz will be writing a post for the Figment blog about how best to develop your tone, as well as answering your questions on the Figment forum. Post your questions for Junot Diaz here!

This contest is a wonderful opportunity for young writers to share their work in a supportive and stimulating forum, and have the chance to learn from an established and beloved author. To read more about the contest and submission guidelines, or to learn more about Figment, visit their website at www.figment.com.

Good luck to all contestants!

—Acacia, WITS Intern

Each year, Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia sponsors a poetry contest open to high school girls. Now in its 48^th year, the contest awards honors and prizes for the best poems submitted by girls who are sophomores or juniors in high school. The contest, named for Nancy Thorpe, Hollins class of 1960, aims to support and encourage the work of young, female poets.

The winners are selected by faculty and students in the creative writing department at Hollins University. The first place winner will receive a $200 cash prize, free registration, transportation to, and housing for the Lex Allen Literary Festival at Hollins University on March 10, 2012, publication in Cargoes, Hollins’ student literary magazine, and ten copies of Cargoes. Six second-place winners will receive a $25 prize, publication in Cargoes, and two copies of Cargoes.

Contestants must be sophomores or juniors in high school, must have a faculty sponsor, and may submit up to two poems.  All submissions should be made online here before November 15, 2011. For more information about submission requirements, and to read about Hollins University’s creative writing program, visit the contest webpage.

This contest is a great opportunity for young women interested in poetry to share their work and possibly have that work published. Don’t forget to submit online before November 15^th!

Stephen and Bianca with a friend outside the Schnitz.

For Stephen and Bianca, teachers at at Metropolitan Learning Center, the city is a classroom. They regularly take their students off-campus to see performances of all kinds, including the Arts & Lectures Series. When asked which part of the Students to the Schnitz program is more important, the free books or the free tickets to the events, they answered, “Both!” Stephen likes his students to connect the printed book to the author, a person not so unlike themselves, and the effort they put into writing it. Bianca reports that the free copies of Stacy Schiff’s biography Cleopatra were snapped up by eager students.They are encouraged to mark up the books, make notes in the margins, to interact with the original interactive medium. It’s all part of learning that a relationship with a great book can be for the long haul. Apparently they don’t like to share. “Where’s my book?” Bianca demanded, imitating a student. Thanks to the sponsors of Students to the Schnitz for sharing, so the students don’t have to.

On Tuesday November 18^th Literary Arts held its annual WITS fundraiser luncheon, hosted by Blue Hour. Members of the Literary Arts staff and Board of Directors gathered with almost 200 friends, writers, teachers and other members of the community to support WITS.

We are thrilled to share that the event was a huge success, raising more than $39, 750 for the program. As many are already aware, the WITS program costs more than $200,000 a year to fully fund. We ask each participating school to contribute roughly ten percent of the cost for the program at that school; however, schools are served regardless of their ability to pay. Literary Arts is charged with raising the remaining funds.

Beyond being a financial success, the luncheon was particularly delightful thanks to our wonderful student readers: Rose Hogeweide, Jin Mei McMahon, Orby Fleury and Benjamin Wakefield-Smay. Rose shared some of her fondest memories of working with writer Carmen Bernier-Grand at Roosevelt High School, offering an example of the lasting impact that working with a writer in residence can have on a budding writer. Benjamin and Jin Mei both read from non-fiction pieces they produced during their residencies at Madison and Cleveland High Schools. Orby, a graduate of Jefferson High School, made everyone smile by reading his poem “Make Me Shine in the Lonely Place”.

Shay James, principal at Franklin High School, spoke about the positive effects WITS has on students in the Franklin community.  Gary Stein, managing editor at the Oregonian, shared his thoughts about this year’s anthology, describing the many “little moments that tug at your heart, or shock you, or surprise you.” Finally, WITS writer Karen Karbo, author of the forthcoming book How Georgia Became O’Keefe, spoke about some of her most memorable successes and challenges working with high school students, some of whom she still hears from, years later.

Thank you to everyone who contributed and who came together to celebrate Writers in the Schools!

Are you a motivated high school student who values writing? If you are, you might be interested in applying to the Young Writers Workshop sponsored by the Kenyon Review and hosted at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

The workshop is an intensive two-week summer program for intellectually curious students, and works with young writers to develop their critical and creative abilities with language. The workshop aims to help students harness their natural creative strengths, and improve their skills in articulating those ideas on the page. In reference to the workshop’s approach to working with developing writers, the Kenyon Review website says: “Writers discover what they want to say—their ideas, images, narrative direction—in the act of writing (and rewriting). Writing, thinking, and imagining, in other words, are part of the same creative process. Thus, at Young Writers, students write to explore ideas, then develop those ideas through further writing.”

Workshops of no more than twelve students meet for five hours a day, and include free-writing exercises, responses to prompts, and more structured instruction on writing short stories, poems, personal essays and other experimental forms.

The workshop takes place at Kenyon College, and in addition to the offerings of the program, students also have access to the college recreational facilities such as basketball courts and swimming pool. Scholarships are available to students who demonstrate significant financial need. This program is a great opportunity for students who want to take their writing to the next level, and share feedback with a community of young writers.

Read more about the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop at:

http://www.kenyonreview.org/workshops-ywinfo.php

In November, The Nature of Words, a literature based non-profit serving the High Desert region of the Northwest, will begin accepting entries in poetry, fiction, literary non-fiction and nature writing for the 2012 Rising Star Creative Writing Competition. The Nature of Words aims to foster appreciation of the literary arts through a variety of programs for students and adults. Their programs include an annual literary festival in November featuring readings by acclaimed authors, Words Without Walls, a creative writing in the schools program, The Storefront Project offering drop in creative writing workshops to students, and the Rising Star Competition.

The Rising Star Competition gives The Nature of Words a chance to celebrate the young authors in the community. The contest is open to students 19-25, and the winners in each category will be honored at the Rising Star Competition Award Ceremony, invited to the literary festival in November where they will get to attend a workshop with a guest author, published in the Nature of Words Anthology and will receive a cash prize.

This contest is a great opportunity for young writers to share their work in a public forum, engage with the literary community in the Northwest, and possibly get published!

For more information about the Rising Star Creative Writing Competition and The Nature of Words, visit:

www.thenatureofwords.org or email mailto:programs@thenatureofwords.org

Next weekend, October 8th-10th, Wordstock will kick off their annual book and literary festival here in Portland. Wordstock is a non-profit organization that celebrates and supports writing in the classroom and in the community. The festival, one of the largest of its kind in the nation, showcases the literary achievement of contemporary writers.

This year, the Wordstock schedule includes eight current and former WITS writers and affiliates. Among the WITS writers featured are Ismet Prcic, Emma Oliver, Elyse Fenton, Carmen Bernier-Grand, and Mary Rechner, former WITS writer and current WITS Program Director. In addition, Wordstock will feature John Morrison, a poet and former WITS Program director, and Cecilia Hagen, a WITS Summit participant who will be doing a poetry reading. Nancy Sullivan, Librarian at Madison High School, and the President-Elect of OASL, the Oregon Association of School Libraries will speak on the panel “Banned” with Mary Rechner.

Ismet Prcic, a current WITS writer, will be reading from his debut novel, Shards, which tells the story of a young Bosnian who flees his war-torn homeland. Of his process transforming the reality of his experience into fiction, Prcic writes: “what I noticed was that, over time, I had started to exaggerate. My story became more and more dramatic, my role in it more and more heroic, and these strangers — who didn’t know what a wuss I am in real life — believed me. I asked myself what is the difference between story and this so-called reality?”

Joining Ismet Prcic in the ranks of WITS writers featured at Wordstock is Elyse Fenton, a new WITS writer. Elyse will read from her poetry collection CLAMOR, which won the 2010 University of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize, Cleveland State University Press First Book Award and the Texas Institute of Letters‘ Bob Bush Memorial Award. The collection poignantly captures her experience as a “war bride” after her husband joined the military as a medic in the Iraq war, and showcases Fenton’s elegant, candid style in poems such as “Gratitude”. On the literary blog, How a Poem Happens, Elyse writes: “Many of the poems in Clamor were borne of these fragments of communication—shards, really, because of the way they refracted experience, the way they stuck beneath the nail beds and refused to be dislodged.”
Join us this weekend at the Oregon Convention Center for the Wordstock Festival, to hear from Izzy, Elyse and many other gifted writers associated with the WITS program.

See the complete Wordstock schedule online at:

http://schedule.wordstockfestival.com/

—Acacia, WITS intern

MLC student Peter outside the Schnitz last Thursday.

Literary Arts kicked off its new “Students to the Schnitz” program by welcoming 65 students from Bianca Espinosa and Stephen Lambert’s Great Books class at Metropolitan Learning Center in Northwest Portland. Funded by the generosity of Literary Arts’ patrons, “Students to the Schnitz” provides complimentary books, transportation and tickets for Portland Public High School students to attend each of our Portland Arts & Lectures events this year.

The MLC students read Accordion Crimes, Annie Proulx’s novel which follows a single green accordion as it is handed down through generations of immigrants to the United States. It sounds like a perfect fit for the Great Books class, as teacher Stephen Lambert described it. They’re studying power, race and culture, as they’re reflected in books from around the world. The topic of their last paper was to select a cultural artifact from one book (such as an accordion, perhaps?), and write about how it affects, and is affected by, those forces.

When you come to see Stacy Schiff next month, keep an eye peeled for MLC students. They’ll be back again, and their peers from Wilson, Franklin, Lincoln and Madison will be joining us throughout the year.

At the WITS Orientation in early September, new WITS writer Sarah Jaffe read from her response to a writing prompt about what she loved and hated about high school: “I remember that I loved picking out my own classes once I got to high school. And how you didn’t have to just be popular or unpopular any more. And I remember lockers.” As the seven new WITS writers went around the room and shared pithy anecdotes about their high school experiences, everyone laughed, reminded of both the excitement and the frustrations of adolescence.

Fifteen returning and seven new writers gathered for the WITS Orientation at p:ear, a community center which serves homeless youth through arts and education. At the start of each season, Literary Arts holds an orientation for the writers in the program to discuss effective strategies for working with high school students, and to provide an opportunity for the new writers to meet the returning writers in the program, with whom they can exchange feedback on their successes and challenges as they progress through their residencies.

The orientation, led by program director Mary Rechner and program assistant and former writer in the schools, Joanna Rose, was fun and informative, providing writers with informational tools and resources they can utilize as they face the various rewards and challenges of teaching creative writing to young adults. Joanna Rose shared some of her most memorable successes and “greatest mistakes”, from her many years of working as a WITS writer. Both new and returning writers doubtlessly took away valuable information and the encouragement to ask for help from the WITS program and their talented peers.

This year, Literary Arts welcomes Sarah Jaffe, Katie Schneider, Arnie Seong, Devan Schwartz, Elyse Fenton, Amanda Gersh, and Emily Harris to WITS, along with 15 returning writers. You can read their bios at:

http://www.literary-arts.org/wits/writers.php

-Acacia, WITS Intern