creative writing teacher nyc

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The NYU Creative Writing Program

is among the most distinguished programs in the country and is a leading national center for the study of writing and literature.

Graduate Program

The graduate Creative Writing Program at NYU consists of a community of writers working together in a setting that is both challenging and supportive.

Low Residency MFA Workshop in Paris

The low-residency MFA Writers Workshop offers students the opportunity to develop their craft in one of the world's most inspiring literary capitals.

Undergraduate Program

The undergraduate program offers workshops, readings, internships, writing prizes, and events designed to cultivate and inspire.

Spring 2022 Reading Series

The lively public Reading Series hosts a wide array of writers, translators, and editors, and connects our program to the local community.

Creative Writing Program

Low-residency mfa writers workshop in paris, undergraduate, washington square review, literary journal, a sample residency calendar, write in paris, scholarships and grant opportunities, program of study, dates and deadlines, creative writing, recent highlights from the mfa community.

• Alum Bruna Dantas Lobato   won the 2023 National Book Award in translation

• Faculty member Sharon Olds received the Joan Margarit International Poetry Prize from King Felipe VI in July 2023

• Alumni  Tess Gunty  and  John Keene   each won a 2022 National Book Award in fiction and poetry , respectively

• Books by faculty members  Sharon  Olds  and  Meghan O'Rourke;  and alums  Tess Gunty, John Keene ,  and  Jenny Xie  were named finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards; books by alum  Rio Cortez and faculty member Leigh Newman were also longlisted

• Alum  Ada Limón   has been named the nation's 24th Poet Laureate  by the Library of Congress

• Alum  Amanda Larson 's debut poetry collection  GUT  was selected by Mark Bibbins as the winner of the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber Book Award

• Alum  Sasha Burshteyn  was named a 2022 winner of the 92Y Discovery Prize. Alums Jenna Lanzaro and JinJin Xu were also named semi-finalists for the prize.

• Alum Clare Sestanovich was selected as a  2022 5 under 35 Honoree  by the National Book Foundation

• Alum  Maaza Mengiste  was awarded a  2022 Guggenheim Fellowship

• Visiting graduate faculty member  Brandon Taylor 's collection  Filthy Animals  was named a 2021/22  finalist for The Story Prize  and was shortlisted for the  2022 Dylan Thomas Prize

• Alum  Raven Leilani  won the 2021 Clark Fiction Prize, Dylan Thomas prize, the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize for her debut novel  Luster,  and was named a finalist for the 2021 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, the Gotham Book Prize, the 2021 PEN/Hemmingway Award for Debut Novel, the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

• Alum Desiree C. Bailey 's debut poetry collection  What Noise Against the Cane  was longlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize and was also named a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award in Poetry and the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was published as the winner of the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets

• Senior faculty member  Sharon Olds  was named the 2022 recipient of the Poetry Society of America's Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry

You can read more MFA Community news here and find a list of forthcoming and recently published books by alumni here .   NYU CWP alumni include  Aria Aber, Amir Ahmadi Arian, Julie Buntin, Nick Flynn, Nell Freudenberger, Aracelis Girmay, Isabella Hammad, Ishion Hutchinson, Mitchell S. Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, John Keene, Raven Leilani, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Limón, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Maaza Mengiste, John Murillo, Gregory Pardlo, Morgan Parker, Nicole Sealey, Solmaz Sharif, Peng Shepherd, Ocean Vuong, Jenny Xie,  and  Javier Zamora. 

Announcements

Ocean Vuong joins the NYU Creative Writing Program Faculty

Mary Gabriel, Author of “Ninth Street Women”, Receives the NYU/Axinn Foundation Prize

Claudia Rankine joins the NYU Creative Writing Program Faculty

Classic podcasts from the lillian vernon reading series.

Anne Carson

Zadie Smith and Jeffrey Eugenides

Terrance Hayes

Where to find us.

Faculty Spotlight

Terrance Hayes’s most recent publications include American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin and To Float In The Space Between.

Darin Strauss is the author of several acclaimed novels, including the most recent The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story.

Ocean Vuong is the author of the bestselling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and the poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel Intimacies was longlisted for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of 2021 by numerous publications.

Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of acclaimed novels The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot. His latest collection is Fresh Complaint. 

Sharon Olds is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program. Her 2012 collection Stags Leap was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize and a Pulitzer.

Foer was listed in Rolling Stone's "People of the Year," Esquire's "Best and Brightest," and The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list.

Hari Kunzru is the author of six novels, including the most recent Red Pill, and White Tears, a finalist for the PEN Jean Stein Award.

Claudia Rankine is a recipient of the 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, and the author of six collections including Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.

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WriteOn NYC: Bringing Creative Writing To NYC Schools

WriteOn NYC is one fellowship with two missions: providing passionate writing instructors to New York City schools and providing teacher training and fellowship support students in the New School's MFA in Creative Writing Program .

WriteOn NYC began as a pilot program headed by its founder, Professor  Helen Schulman , with the assistance of two MFA students from The New School in January 2016. The program partnered with George Jackson Academy, the only independent nonsectarian merit-based middle school for boys from low-income families in New York City, to develop and deliver a creative writing curriculum. The program has since expanded to classrooms in the High School for Economics and Finance, a public school in the Financial District of Manhattan, and other initiatives for young scholars across NYC. Each semester, students work closely with a cohort of hand-picked teaching fellows from across genres in the MFA program. In this way, WriteOn NYC brings the joys of literature and creative self-expression to local kids while offering MFA students on-the-ground teaching training that prepares them to enter the job market after graduation.

WriteOn NYC has further expanded its mission by developing a pedagogy and training program for teaching fellows, designed to help them create their own curricula for creative writing and literature courses and providing them with valuable classroom management skills. Thanks to a grant from The New School's Collaboratory, WriteOn NYC was able to design and create its own database of syllabi, a teaching handbook, reading lists, and additional opportunities for use by current and future fellows. The fellowship’s stipend also helps fellows offset some of the costs of attending the MFA program. 

To date, 93 New School MFA students and hundreds of New York City schoolchildren have taken part in the program. With the help of a highly engaged advisory board of New School alumni and support from The New School’s University Development team, WriteOn NYC is actively cultivating partnerships with other schools and programs to support its desire and capacity to grow.

WriteOn NYC is made possible through the generosity of founding donors Vicky and David Gottlieb and the tireless efforts of its many MFA student fellows and alumni. Professor  Helen Schulman  continues to serve as the faculty leader of the program; MFA Creative Writing ’16 alumnus Phineas Lambert, former publisher and director of Guernica and current member of the board of directors of Orion magazine, serves as the program director. MFA Creative Writing '16 alumna Catherine Bloomer, PhD, serves as the associate director. 

To learn more about the program, visit  WriteOnNYC.com . 

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The Writers Studio

The Original School of Creative Writing and Thinking, est. 1987

The Writers Studio New York

IN-PERSON CLASSES

NYC Level 1, 2, and Advanced Poetry classes will be held in person at the Village Community School at 272 West 10th Street in the West Village. Proof of vaccination and masks are required to attend in-person classes.

VIRTUAL CLASSES

For those NYC Level 1 students who prefer a virtual class, there will be a Thursday class held via Google Meet. NYC Level 3/4 and NYC Memoir classes will continue to meet at their scheduled times via Google Meet.

Any NYC classes that meet remotely are open to students from outside of the New York City area.

The Writers Studio, founded in 1987 by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Schultz, offers ongoing writing workshops — both on site and online — designed to help students discover and nurture their own voices. We welcome students at all stages, from those who have only dreamed of writing fiction or poetry to those with MFAs hungry for additional serious, ongoing instruction. Students provide the desire to write and the willingness to learn, and we provide the structure, the technical know-how, the professional feedback and the friendly community to enable them to reach their full potential.

Our in-person New York City classes take place in an informal classroom setting in lower Manhattan. We understand how vulnerable students can feel sharing their words with a room full of strangers, so we take care to make everyone feel at home. In just a couple of weeks, a remarkable degree of solidarity and trust tend to develop in each workshop.

In Level 1, the emphasis is on building a solid foundation in craft as students do exercises designed to introduce them to a wide array of new narrative approaches. We also teach students to give constructive, supportive feedback. We work to assure that critiques build on each other, so that students never leave the class with a head full of conflicting reactions and suggestions. As students move up through the levels, the basic structure of the workshops remains the same, but the level of sophistication grows across the board. Assignments become more challenging to meet the increasing skill and understanding of the students. In the upper levels students are generally working on longer pieces, but they continue to do exercises, always honing their skills and deepening their understanding.

All students new to The Writers Studio in New York City start at Level 1. Since we approach teaching with our own method and vocabulary, even experienced writers with publications and/or MFAs will find plenty that is new and challenging in Level 1.

We also encourage our New York City students to take advantage of our other local events: the Craft Class and our ongoing reading series. Each year we showcase the work of favorite literary journals, new and established published authors, and the work of our own students and teachers. Students invite their families and friends to these events, which helps us introduce The Writers Studio to the larger community.

For more information, please call us at (212) 255-7075 or visit us on Facebook .

Available NYC Courses

The writers studio, online and local communities.

New to The Writers Studio? Start here .

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The 17 best writing classes in NYC

Harness your inner Zadie Smith at these stellar writing workshops for every type of writer on every type of budget

Whether you want to write the next murder mystery and hope it gets picked up by Hollywood directors, or  you want to ensure that your work emails and reports are concise, grammatically correct and rhetorically sound , these writing classes in NYC will help you put those ideas onto paper. And hopefully into some of the best independent bookstores and NYC libraries (fingers crossed!). The remarkable literary institutions employ authors-cum-teachers to teach courses in everything from personal essays to poetry, so you’re sure to find a discipline that suits you. And if you need inspiration, re-reading the best books about New York should do the trick. Enjoy.

RECOMMENDED: Full guide to classes in NYC RECOMMENDED: The best BYOB painting classes in NYC

This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our   affiliate   guidelines .

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NYC writing classes

1.  Advanced Business Writing

Once you have your grasp on the essentials of grammar and writing (like knowing what a semicolon actually does), you’ll want to enroll in a more advanced course to ensure every word you write is chosen with precision. In this course, you’ll learn how to analyze your audience, shape your tone and message for persuasion, education or communication and you’ll work on various strategies for planning your writing and ensuring that you are utilizing rhetorical tools and informative structures properly. At the end of the course, you’ll have sample writing projects that you can add to your job portfolio and you will be ready to use your writing as a tool to further your career.

2.  Effective Business Writing

While creatives may want to learn how to write the next great American novel, there are a lot of professional reasons that one might want to improve their writing skills. Virtually every job will require some form of communication between individuals and departments and the ability to write coherent emails, proposals, memos or updates is an important skill if you want to survive in an office environment. Learning the fine art of grammar and the practical skills needed to communicate cleanly will pay dividends in the long-term.

3.  Creative Writing 101: 6 Weeks

One of the most inviting aspects of creative writing is how diverse of a field it is once you scratch the surface. Whether you are interested in writing poetry, short-fiction, long-form prose or even creative non-fiction or memoirs, you won’t need to look hard to find a vibrant community of fellow writers. In this introductory creative writing course, you can learn fundamental skills that can be applied to almost any genre of writing and you can get hands-on experience working in fictional and non-fictional styles to acclimate yourself to the variety of different styles of writing that you can learn and practice.

4.  Fiction Writing Level 1: 10 Week Workshop

If you are interested in flexing your creative muscles, you can enroll in an introductory fiction and poetry workshop to start looking for your own personal muse. In this course, students will all about the process of writing fiction and poetry. No one writes a world-changing poem on their first go and this class is about learning the art of revising, editing and expanding on your work in order to take the germ of an idea and turn it into a completed piece that expresses your own creative desires. Whether you are looking to write short form poetry or you want to write a 13-book series in your favorite brand of genre fiction, learning these basic techniques will be a vital boon to your work.

5.  Grammar Essentials

English grammar is incredibly (and often needlessly complicated). Did you know that the reason you aren’t supposed to split infinitives is because someone in the 19th century wanted English to sound more like Latin? Well, if the basics of grammar continue to give you problems, you should consider enrolling in a course like this one. Here, you’ll get practical lessons in the art of writing clean sentences that clearly communicate your intended message and ensure that your writing isn’t giving readers the wrong impressions.

6.  Just Write

One of the biggest stumbling blocks that new writers face is that they overthink the preparation work and skimp on the writing work. Like any skill, you learn to write by practicing and the best way to do that is to write. In this regularly-held three-hour seminar, writers are encouraged to do just that: sit around a table and bang out some words while enduring the silent judgment of their peers (who are also using this as a time they are forced to write). While there is time for discussion, critique (and socializing), the outline of this program is simple: Just write.

7.  Business Writing Bootcamp

If you want a complete business writing education, consider enrolling in a business writing bootcamp. This course pairs the grammar lessons and technical writing skills of an introductory course with the rhetorical and persuasive writing training of an advanced writing course. This makes it a one-stop experience for students with minimal writing experience to start to master the important aspects of business writing. Improve your career opportunities and help improve the quality of your persuasive and informative projects with one of these immersive bootcamps.

8.  Personal Essay Writing Intensive

The personal essay has become a rather popular form of writing for mass consumption in recent years, particularly as the barriers to publishing short form content have been lowered (were one truly inclined, social media platforms make it almost effortless). In this class, you’ll learn how to brainstorm ideas and plan out the structure of the personal essay and how to build both pathos and ethos in your experiences and arguments. Similar to memoir writing, personal essay writing is about leveraging your own personal experience as a rhetorical tool and it is practical whether you are trying to persuade an audience, sell yourself to a company or institution or make a profession out of Op-Ed writing.

9.  Stand-up Comedy One Day Intensive

Do you want to perform? Want to make people laugh? Want to tour the country? Well, consider learning stand-up comedy. While professional stand-up comedians make it look off-the-cuff, the process of writing a good stand-up routine involves a lot of fine-tuning and revision, particularly as you workshop jokes and tighten the set. In this intensive course, you’ll get a chance to try out some new material, get feedback and start the process of refining your jokes in front of professional comedy writers. Whether you are hoping to punch up a bit or start your first routine, this intrusive course will help you start refining your comedic voice.

10.  The Editor’s Eye Intensive

Not all aspects of writing are about being creative. Making sure that your work is properly edited, free of errors and written as tightly as you would prefer is an essential step to getting your work published. This course will help students learn the basics of editing so that they can identify things like improper grammar, incorrect word usage, clunky and awkwards sentences and overly verbose writing. This program also aims to help students develop the professional skills needed to work as an editor (since companies hire professional editors and freelance writers who don’t like editing will pay a pretty penny to have someone else handle it).

11.  Screenwriting I: 10-Week Workshop

If you have an idea that you think would be perfect for the big screen, you should consider enrolling in this immersive screenwriting workshop. Writing a screenplay isn’t like writing other forms of long-form fiction, so you’ll want to get focused training on how to write scripts that are cinematic, compelling and, most importantly, marketable. You’ll learn the art of writing dialogue, stage directions and providing actors and directors with the information they need to bring your vision to life. Whether you are interested in arthouse cinema or want to pen the next famous blockbuster, you’ll benefit from taking this course.

12.  Memoir Writing Intensive

If the personal essay aims to make an argument, then the memoir aims to tell a story. In this course, you’ll learn the art of transforming your personal experience into a compelling narrative that entices readers and helps make a broader point about how your experiences tell us something about the world. Slightly distinct from creative non-fiction, memoir writing is possibly the most personal style of writing that you can engage in. While memoirs have traditionally been associated with powerful heads of state and significant thinkers, the genre has become more welcoming to the perspective of the everyday, and in  this course, you’ll learn how your own lived experiences can become the thing of memoir greatness.

13.  Songwriting Intensive

Acclaimed songwriter Taylor Swift was recently named Time Magazine ’s Person of the Year, suggesting that writing music can have globe altering implications. If you want to learn the basics of professional songwriting and emulate your favorite music icon, consider enrolling in this songwriting course. This course will teach students how to write popular music, how to craft a perfect tune to go along with the lyrics and how to market the music to studios, producers and labels. This course covers a range of different genres, so whether you want to write R&B, pop, rockabilly, hip-hop or smooth jazz, this course will help you develop your skills and start writing the next great earworm.

14.  Playwriting Intensive

Live theater is one of the oldest forms of creative writing, dating back, at least to the early Grecians (and likely existed in some form even before the development of systematized writing). If you want to flex your inner Shakespeare, Beckett or Tennesse Williams, consider enrolling in this intensive playwriting course. You’ll learn how to transform the empty stage into a real world and you’ll learn how to write your plays to give the actors the tools they need to deliver the best performances possible. Writing for the stage is its own unique challenge and this course will give you the experience you need to start staging your own masterwork. Plus, for any aspiring Hammersteins, the course can also help you begin to write musicals.

15.  Plot 1: Mechanics 3-week Intensive

Hollywood screenplays, like all narrative, rely on structure to scaffold the story and build audience investment. Whether you are working with the traditional three-act structure most common to feature films, the five-act structures of classic stage plays or the one or two act structures common to modernist works, you’ll want to understand why narratives are structured in certain ways and how to use these structures to your advantage when writing a screenplay. This course will teach students the math that goes into writing a structured screenplay and give them hands-on practice scaffolding their story beats.

16.  Social Media Content Marketing: Blogs & Twitter at Noble Desktop

A lot of professional writing for mass audiences is now done online, with blogs and Twitter being important places to communicate and persuade your audience (like this article is doing now and in this class you’ll learn whether or not meta commentary like this helps your content marketing). In this class, you’ll get hands-on experience working with professional content writers to help you set goals, build marketing strategies and create a voice for your company or organization. You will also learn how to create a coherent brand identity for your online content and how to use platforms like Twitter to expand your reach, build a customer base and keep that base engaged with your content.

17.  Character Creation

Characters can really make or break a story. This Character creation class is a compact workshop for character creating and development, to help give you the skills to make your story work. The workshop will focus on areas like principles of characterization, consistency and effects of dialogue, plus more to help with your character-building and storytelling. It's a two-hour session with a teacher, working anywhere that suits you both and 1-2-1 to ensure you have thorough guidance and help. 

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MFA in Creative Writing

A home for writers in harlem.

For more than four decades, City College has been a home for writers in Harlem. Since its inception, some of the most distinguished writers in America have taught here at our West Harlem campus, including Donald Barthelme, Gwendolyn Brooks, Kurt Vonnegut, Marilyn Hacker, William Matthews, Grace Paley and Susan Sontag. Our MFA Program in Creative Writing is dedicated to diversity, excellence and inclusion . The mission of our program is simple: We want every student to find his or her unique voice, whether through fiction, nonfiction, drama, screenwriting, experimental or genre fiction and/or poetry, while simultaneously preparing them for life beyond graduate school as writers, teachers, scholars, and more.

Our recent award-winning graduates include Hasanthika Sirisena, Lisa Ko and Brendon Kiely. New York Times Bestsellers and Pulitzer Prize winners include Walter Mosley, Oscar Hijuelos, and Ernesto Quinonez. In small workshops, craft courses and literary analysis, our students immerse themselves in their writing. Meanwhile, they discover a thriving community through literary magazines, public readings and visiting writers.

“Our MFA program is dedicated to diversity, excellence and inclusion. We help emerging writers find their voice, polish their craft, and enter the contemporary publishing landscape.”

We welcome our MFA students to attend the program at their own pace, either full-time or part-time. We believe in access and opportunity not for just a select few, but for all those who are committed to their creativity, literature and who take the craft of writing seriously.

Finally, despite its prime location and storied past, the City College’s MFA program is dedicated to remaining at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in New York City. We welcome our MFAs to attend the program at their own pace as full-time or part-time students. We believe in access and opportunity not just for select few, but for all those who believe in the life of literature and who take the craft of writing seriously.

Fall Application Deadline: February 15 Extended to March 1st APPLY ONLINE Visit our full program site here

In the press.

‘The Blue-Collar Harvard’

Fledgling authors from underrepresented backgrounds and nontraditional students are turning to graduate creative writing programs at the City University of New York to tell their stories.

by Sara Weissman,  Inside Higher Ed,   June 22, 2021

The class for the creative writing master of fine arts program at City College of New York this past spring was its largest yet — enrollment jumped from 120 students in the fall to 140 this spring. There were 105 students enrolled in fall 201

What makes the CCNY MFA in Creative Writing Different from other programs?

“Diversity. We’re located in Harlem. Our unofficial tagline is “Ten times the diversity for one tenth the price,” because we’re also comparatively affordable”…

MFA Program Profile: Emily Raboteau on CCNY Publisher’s Weekly, May 2015

We have students of all backgrounds in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality, and age. No one group is the majority, and therefore none of the work is treated like minority literature. There are radical implications for the kinds of work our students are putting out into the world for it to be nurtured, respected, celebrated, and intelligently critiqued in the classroom.

IndoorVoices Podcast interviews the Director: Episode 65: Michelle Valladares on CCNY’s creative writing MFA

By Kathleen Collins, October 18, 2021

In Spring 2021, the Creative Writing MFA at City College saw an unprecedented enrollment spike. It’s not exactly clear why it occurred, but Director Michelle Valladares has some ideas about that. She has lots of ideas, in fact, about unique and exciting ways to grow the program even more while still maintaining a manageable cohort size…

What Alumni Are Saying

Michelle Valladares Assistant Professor & Director of MFA in Creative Writing Location: Room 6/219 Phone: 212-650-6694 [email protected]

Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) celebrates the imagination through transformative writing and arts education for youth and lifelong learners. Our programs and publications inspire classroom innovation and create greater equity in and through the literary arts.

T&w programs include: writing workshops for youth, art workshops for seniors, and training for teachers. in addition, t&w hosts the ny poetry out loud recitation competition and the ny youth poet laureate program for teens in new york state. to support the teaching of creative writing, we publish teachers & writers magazine and an assortment of books for educators., our 2023-2025 strategic vision, our 2023-2025 strategic vision, released october 2022, outlines a new mission, vision, and core values, and goals for the next two years. .

Read the 2023-2025 Strategic Vision

We strive toward a world in which artistic practice is valued and accessible to all, with the belief that words have the power to transform lives and communities.

• We envision a world in which students’ whole selves have a place in school, where they are encouraged to experiment and explore language in their authentic voices.
• We envision a world in which learning is a lifelong process and there are abundant art-making opportunities for older adults.
• We envision classrooms that embrace creative play, free thought, free expression, and an eager willingness to engage with divergent ideas.
• We envision a world where artists earn fair and sustainable compensation that supports creative work.
• We envision a world in which arts education is vital; valued as a wellspring of creative thinking, problem solving, and growth; and where society thrives through artistic collaboration among communities, teachers, students, and artists.

Core Values

T&w’s programs are centered around our core values of creativity; process & practice; collaboration; and diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility., creativity:.

We inspire imagination, foster critical thinking, and nurture the development of student voices.

Process & Practice:

We honor the creative process, guided by the practice of working artists, and provide the space and structure that leads students to produce great work.

Collaboration:

We work together with writers, partners, and students to develop innovative and responsive programs. We believe good things happen when ideas and resources are exchanged in a spirit of reciprocal learning.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility:

We pursue a culture in which all can flourish by centering marginalized voices, asking participants and facilitators to examine their place in the context of their communities.

Teachers & Writers Collaborative was founded in 1967 by a group of writers and educators who believed that professional writers could make a unique contribution to the teaching of writing and literature. Those responsible for shaping T&W’s program and philosophy in the organization’s early years included June Jordan, Rosellen Brown, Victor Hernández Cruz, Kenneth Koch, Herbert Kohl, Phillip Lopate, Grace Paley, Muriel Rukeyser, and Anne Sexton, among others.

Since its founding, T&W has published more than 80 books about teaching writing. T&W writers have brought writing residencies and professional development workshops to hundreds of thousands of students and tens of thousands of teachers in New York City schools. This depth of experience led the National Endowment for the Arts to call T&W the arts education group that is “most familiar with creative writing/literature in primary and secondary schools.”

Asari Beale is an Afro-Latina writer, educator, and leader deeply committed to children’s literacy. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable and a steering committee member of LitNet, a network serving America’s literary community. She has taught literature and creative writing at Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and Fordham University. Prior to joining Teachers & Writers, she served as the Director of Communications and Community Relations at LSA Family Health Service and as Communications Manager at Reach Out and Read of Greater New York.  Ms. Beale holds a BA from New York University and an MFA from Brooklyn College. She lives, loves, and writes out of Harlem, New York City.

Nancy L. Weber is a fiction writer and teacher. Prior to joining the Teachers & Writers staff in September 2019, Ms. Weber was an Adjunct Lecturer at St. Joseph’s College and the New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn, as well as a Fiction and Business Writing teacher at Gotham Writers Workshop. She was also a Founding Board Member, Program Director, and Workshop Facilitator for NY Writers Coalition, a non-profit arts and social justice organization providing writing programs to disenfranchised youth and adults throughout NYC. Ms. Weber received a BFA in Film Production from New York University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Writer’s Foundry at St. Joseph’s College.

Alice Pencavel is a writer and teacher. Prior to joining Teachers & Writers in 2021, Ms. Pencavel worked as a Teaching Artist for multiple non-profits, including Arts Connection, SAY (Stuttering Association for the Young), Brooklyn Acting Lab, Stages on the Sound, Girls Write Now, and Teachers & Writers, among others. As a playwright, she has collaborated with Naked Angels, Lincoln Center Theater, MCC, Manhattan Repertory, Superhero Clubhouse, and the Kitchen Theater. She also worked in Customer Support with DonorsChoose, helping public school students receive educational materials. Having served as a Teaching Artist with Teachers & Writers, Ms. Pencavel has seen first hand the impact of bringing writing programs into schools and is thrilled to offer her services in this new capacity. Ms. Pencavel holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College and an MFA in Playwriting from the New School.

Joshua Garcia is a poet and writer. He has led a poetry writing program for incarcerated writers at SCI Coal Township in Pennsylvania, and he has mentored undergraduate students in creative writing and community engagement initiatives at the College of Charleston. He is the author of Pentimento (Black Lawrence Press 2024), and his poetry has appeared in Ecotone ,  The Georgia Review , Passages North ,  Ploughshares , and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the College of Charleston and has received a Stadler Fellowship from Bucknell University and an Emerge—Surface—Be Fellowship from The Poetry Project. He lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York.

Lanxing Fu is a Chinese-American theater artist living in NYC. She is Co-Director of Superhero Clubhouse, an interdisciplinary group creating performance for climate and environmental justice. Her art-making is rooted in social-engaged theater practice, and she has been a writer, teaching artist, and producer for many years, as well as a workshop facilitator and guest speaker with various organizations. She holds a BA in Theatre Arts and a BA in Humanities, Science, Environment from Virginia Tech.

Join our team:

Check again soon!

Board of Directors

Lynn chin global client partner, pricewaterhousecoopers, patricia hampl regents professor of english at the university of minnesota; author of blue arabesque, i could tell you stories: sojourns in the land of memory, virgin time , and a romantic education ; recipient of numerous awards, including macarthur, guggenheim and fulbright fellowships., wandy hoh managing director, macquarie asset management, casey blue james senior director of strategic development, random house group, a division of penguin random house, luis jaramillo (chair) author of the novel the doctor’s wife ; director, school of writing, the new school., ping li senior vice president, macquarie asset management., fatima malik chief advancement officer, power of two; malik’s poetry has been published in the georgia review, the margins, poetry northwest, waxwing, and elsewhere., steven schrader author of the short story collections crimes of passion, on sundays we visit the in-laws, and arriving at work , and the memoir what we deserved ; publisher of cane hill press; former teachers & writers collaborative director., nancy larson shapiro (vice chair) director of teachers & writers collaborative from 1979-2005; co-editor of the point: where teaching & writing intersect ., barbara stallworth pmp, lead program manager, s&p dow jones indices, david wagner (treasurer) banking executive, tiphanie yanique author of how to escape a leper colony: a novella and stories and the children’s picture book i am the virgin islands ; recipient of the 2011 bocas fiction prize for caribbean literature, the 2010 rona jaffe foundation writers’ award for fiction, and a 2008 pushcart prize; visiting associate professor of english, wesleyan university., join our board and make a difference, teachers & writers collaborative is currently seeking new members for the board of directors.  to learn more about this unique opportunity to make a difference in the lives of new yorkers, contact t&w executive director, asari beale ., teachers & writers collaborative thanks the members of the t&w advisory board for their support of our work..

Catherine Bowman

Rosellen Brown

Billy Collins

Christina Davis

Sasha Waters Freyer

Dixie Goswami

Colin Greer

Marvin Hoffman

Kaylie Jones

Daniel Kane

Marc Kaminsky

Simon Kilmurry

Katherine Koch

Leonard Marcus

Bruce Morrow

Sidney Offit

Abiodun Oyewole

Max Rodriguez

Esther Rosenfeld

Jessica Siegel

Martin Skoble

Mark Statman

Susan Straub

David Unger

Meredith Sue Willis

Linda Winston

Alexandra Tyler

Zelda Wirtschafter

Kevin Young

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Writing Curriculum

Teach Writing With The New York Times: Our 2023-24 Curriculum

Our eight writing units, each with its own practical step-by-step guide, are based on real-world features like reviews, photo essays, narratives, podcasts and more.

By The Learning Network

Please note: Fully updated versions of each unit, as well as all supporting materials, will be published as each related contest goes live.

What can the news, features, essays, interviews, photos, videos, podcasts and graphics in The New York Times teach your students about composing for a real audience? So much, we hope, that the units we detail below are just a beginning.

Our writing curriculum is both a road map for teachers and an invitation to students. For teachers, it organizes our offerings — writing prompts, mentor texts and student contests — into eight distinct units, each of which focuses on a different genre of writing that your students can find not just in The Times but in all kinds of real-world sources.

For students, it offers confirmation that they have something valuable to say, a wide range of choices about how to say it and a global audience eager to listen. Promoting student voices has always been a pillar of our site, and through the opportunities for publication woven into each unit, we want to encourage students to go beyond simply consuming media to becoming creators themselves.

Though our offerings are aimed at middle school and high school students, we know that they are used up and down levels and across subjects — from elementary school to college. So have a look, and see if you can find a way to include any of these opportunities in your curriculum this year, whether to help students document their lives, tell stories, express opinions, investigate ideas, interview fascinating people or analyze culture. We can’t wait to hear what they have to say!

Each unit includes:

Writing prompts to help students try out related skills in a “low stakes” way.

We publish new writing prompts every school day and have since 2009. You can find categorized collections of these prompts , or just scroll through to see the latest. Your students can respond on our site, using our public forums as a kind of “rehearsal space” for practicing voice and technique.

Daily opportunities to practice writing for an authentic audience.

If a student submits a comment on our site, it will be read by Times editors, who approve each one before it is published. Submitting a comment also gives students an audience of fellow teenagers from around the world who may read and respond to their work. Each week, we call out our favorite comments and honor dozens of students by name in our Thursday “ Current Events Conversation ” feature.

Guided practice with mentor texts .

Each step-by-step guide features activities, written directly to students, that help them observe, understand and practice the kinds of “craft moves” that make different genres of writing sing. Mentor texts like those informing how to “show not tell” in narratives , how to express critical opinions , how to quote or paraphrase experts and how to craft scripts for podcasts use the work of both Times journalists and the teenage winners of our contests to show students techniques they can emulate.

A contest that acts as a culminating project .

Over the years, we’ve heard from many teachers that our contests serve as final projects in their classes, and this curriculum came about in large part because we wanted to help teachers “plan backward” to support those projects.

All contest entries are considered by experts, whether Times journalists, outside educators from partner organizations or professional practitioners in a related field. Winning means being published on our site and, perhaps, in the print edition of The New York Times.

Below are the eight units we will offer in the 2023-24 school year.

August-October

Documenting and Reflecting on Teenage Lives

This unit was first developed in 2020 to acknowledge the profound effects that tumultuous year had on a generation of teenagers. Our open-ended invitation to “show us — in words or images, video or audio — how the events of this year have affected you” resulted in a deluge of extraordinary submissions, some of which were featured online , in a special print section and in a book . We continued the contest for two more years, and the work of the 2021 and 2022 winners was equally excellent.

This year, we’re inviting you to do the same kind of documentation and reflection , but this time focusing on your school experience. We’re asking, What can you show or tell us that might help explain what it’s like to be an educator or a student in high school right now? Anyone who works or is a student in a secondary school can contribute to this collective portrait by sending almost anything you can upload digitally that addresses that question. All submissions must be accompanied by a written artist’s statement giving additional context.

If you’re reading this and worrying that you don’t have anything to say, trust us: You do. Everyone experiences school differently, and there are stories only you can tell. The exercises in our new step-by-step guide show you how.

Note: Unlike our other contests, this first challenge is only open to high school students (and educators too).

October-November

The Personal Narrative

While The Times is known for its award-winning journalism, the paper also has a robust tradition of publishing personal essays on topics like love , family , life on campus and navigating anxiety . And on our site, our daily writing prompts have long invited students to tell us their stories, too. Our collection of 525 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing is a good place to start, though we add more every week during the school year.

For several years, we ran a personal narrative contest for students, inspired by the essays from The Times Magazine’s long-running Lives column . In 2022, we switched it up, challenging students to write a “tiny memoir” personal narrative in 100 words or less. We loved the results , so we’re bringing that contest back again this October.

Our unit, Teach Narrative Writing With The New York Times , contains links to all the prompts, mentor texts and lesson plans you’ll need to start, while our related guide offers students step-by-step directions for telling meaningful, interesting and short true stories from their lives in 100 words.

November-December

The Critical Review

Book reports and literary essays have long been staples of language arts classrooms, but this unit encourages students to learn how to critique art in other genres as well. As we point out, a cultural review is a form of argumentative essay. Your class may be writing about pop music or sneaker trends, but your students still have to make claims and support them with evidence. And, just as they must in a literature essay, they have to read (or watch, or listen to) a work closely, analyze it, understand its context and explain what is meaningful and interesting about it.

In our step-by-step guide , we walk you through the review-writing process with advice from New York Times critics and student writers. And, as a culminating project , we invite students to send us their own reviews of a book, movie, restaurant, album, theatrical production, video game, dance performance, TV show, art exhibition or any other kind of work The Times critiques. (Please note that this year, unlike in previous years, students are limited to choose only works that are new since Jan. 1, 2023.)

January-February

Informational ‘How-To’ Writing

Informational writing is the style of writing that dominates The New York Times as well as any other traditional newspaper you might read, and in this unit we hope to show students that it can be every bit as engaging and compelling to read and to write as other genres.

Via thousands of articles a month — including front-page reporting on politics, deep data dives in The Upshot, recipes in Cooking, advice columns in Style and long-form investigative pieces in the magazine — Times journalists find ways to experiment with the genre to intrigue and inform their audiences.

For years, we ran a STEM Writing Contest , in which we invited students to explain an issue or question in science, technology, engineering, math or health, and both the related unit and the work of the winning students can still inspire. However, for this school year we’re trying something new by inviting students to follow the example of the long-running Tip column from The New York Times Magazine and write a short description of how to do (almost) any task. We’ll be publishing helpful new materials, including a step-by-step guide, before the contest begins.

Until then, check out both the Tip column and our lesson plan that breaks its formula down. For advice on finding topics and experts, read this piece from Times Insider about how the column is constructed.

February-March

The Photo Essay

How can focusing on one form of journalistic composition teach students cross-curricular skills like researching, storytelling, asking effective questions, observing closely, listening, note-taking, fact-checking, connecting with others and, of course, composing using both words and images with clarity, voice and style?

We hope to show students how to do all of this in our coming unit that will support participation in our new photo essay contest. Inspired by the immersive New York Times series “ Where We Are ,” which focuses on young people and the spaces where they create community, we invite students to work alone or with others to make photo essays about the communities that interest them.

Students can document any kind of offline community they like and feature people of any age. Stay tuned for many more materials, but until then, you can find many relevant tips and exercises in our 2022 guides to photographing and interviewing people.

March-April

Argumentative Writing

The demand for evidence-based argumentative writing is now woven into school assignments across curriculums and grade levels, and you couldn’t ask for better real-world examples than what you can find in the Times Opinion section.

This unit, like our others, is supported with writing prompts, mentor text lesson plans, webinars and more. It’s also supported by a decade of lesson plans and videos that focus on winning teenage work from our long-running Editorial Contest, on topics as varied as policing , anti-Asian hate , artificial intelligence , toxicity in gaming , transgender rights , parental incarceration and the “life-changing magic” of being messy .

Instead of focusing on the editorial as a culminating project this year, however, we’re inviting students to pen an open letter. An open letter is a published letter of protest or appeal usually addressed to an individual but intended for the general public. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter From Birmingham Jail , the recent letter signed by over 1,000 tech leaders about the dangers of artificial intelligence and this funny 2020 letter addressed to Prince Harry and Meghan are all examples of this rich tradition.

Just as we did for the Editorial Contest, we invite students to make an argument in 450 words about something that matters to them, and persuade us that we should care, too. But this time, they must address themselves to a specific target audience or recipient, institution or group — one that has the power to make meaningful change.

Whether they choose their parents, teachers, school board members or mayor; a member of Congress; the head of a corporation; or a metonym like “Silicon Valley” or “the Kremlin,” they should ask themselves, What do I care about? Who can make changes — big or small, local or global — to address my issue or problem? What specifically do I want them to understand and do? And how can I write this as an “open letter,” meaningful not just to me and the recipient, but to a general audience?

We’ll publish a new step-by-step guide later this school year, but until then, you can find ideas and inspiration in our related writing unit and via the work of past Editorial winners .

Whether you’re a high school student or a professional journalist, you’re probably being increasingly expected to communicate ideas, investigate questions and tell stories not just in writing, but across a range of multimedia.

This unit and its related contest help students experiment with one such format — the podcast — by giving them the freedom to talk about anything they want in any form they like. In the past, we’ve had winners who’ve done personal narratives, local travelogues, opinion pieces, interviews with community members, investigative journalism and descriptions of scientific discoveries.

To walk classes through the process of creating an original podcast, we provide a step-by-step guide full of examples from winning student-made work. And, to make sure the format is accessible to anyone with a smartphone or recording device, we also have a related lesson plan that explains some of the technical aspects of podcasting. You can find both of these resources and more in our related Writing for Podcasts unit .

December-January and June-August

Independent Reading & Writing

At a time when teachers are looking for ways to offer students more “voice and choice,” this unit, which spotlights our fall one-pager challenge and our summer reading contest, offers both.

We invite students to choose any article, opinion essay, video, graph, photo collection or podcast from The New York Times that was published this year, and respond to it by showing us how they engaged with the ideas and information in the piece.

For the one-pager, we ask that they respond with a combination of writing and images. This step-by-step guide can help students find a meaningful piece, review it carefully and react to it authentically — then figure out how to create an illustrated one-page response that expresses what they’d most like to say. Take a look at our stunning collection of winning student work to see how it can be done.

Our Summer Reading Contest asks students to tell us what got their attention in The Times and why. For over a decade, they have done that by simply posting a comment on our site, but for 2024, we’ll be asking for a richer range of multimedia responses. More details will be published in the spring, but for now, our related unit and step-by-step guide for writing rich reader responses offer evergreen advice.

FALL 2023 & SPRING 2024 FELLOWS

Grazi Ruzzante is a Brazilian writer based in NYC. She’s also an English-Portuguese translator and ESL teacher with over 15 years of experience. She had her first novel published in Brazil in 2022 and currently pursues an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. 

Cody Tigue was born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He has a BA from the University of Central Arkansas and is currently in the MFA program at The New School, studying Writing for Children and Young Adults. In his free time, he’s often having impromptu writing sessions with friends, searching for a sweet treat, or reading in bed. 

Shelby McDonald is a writer from Berkeley, California. She now lives in New York City where she is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. She likes to write about the many layers of love and resentment in the folds of families. She holds a BA in English and Hispanic Studies. She has worked as a tutor, art teacher, and event coordinator. 

Kate Millar is a poet and writer from Edinburgh, Scotland, currently living in New York City to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. She holds an MA in English from the University of St. Andrews. She sees poetry everywhere, especially in indie/alternative music, nature, and conversations with friends/strangers. Her work can be found in Gutter Magazine , Ekstasis , BOMB , and Atwood Magazine . When not writing, Kate is likely doing collage-based crafts, psychoanalysing her dreams, or talking-instead-of-working in cafes with her friends. 

Em Deimling (they/them) is a professionally agented author with over thirty literary magazine publications. They hold a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from The Ohio State University and are currently an MFA candidate at The New School and a university writing, ADHD, and time management consultant. 

Jennifer Cho Salaff is a second-generation Korean American journalist, columnist, and editor who is currently in Act II of her writing life: literary fiction. She earned her BA from UC Berkeley, a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. Her award-winning work has appeared in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin , LA Daily News , Orange County Register and Darling Magazine , among others. A California girl with Midwest roots, Jennifer is a New Yorker at heart and lives in East Harlem with her husband and two teenage children.  

Hannah Burns is a Brooklyn based writer from Charleston, SC, studying fiction in The New School’s MFA program. Her work centers around desire, memory, domesticity, and the devastating yet hopeful nature of our little human rituals. You can find Hannah co-hosting The New School’s monthly reading series at KGB bar or haunting various libraries, parks, and museums throughout the city.  

Emma Minor is a British writer currently based in New York City. She is studying for an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School and is hard at work on her first novel. Emma also holds a Bachelor of Science degree from a leading university in the UK and previously lived in Sierra Leone, where she ran communications for a healthcare not-for-profit. 

A New Yorker born and raised, Caroline Shifke is back in New York City as an MFA candidate in fiction at The New School, where she also serves as a WriteOn Teaching Fellow. After graduating from Princeton University, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Southeastern Turkey. She was a 2018 Stony Brook Children’s Lit Fellow, and volunteers with Girls Write Now. You can find her personal essays about chronic illness and health in HuffPost and Teen Vogue. 

Naomi Day is a queer Black human writing Afro-centric speculative fiction that centers those who live in liminal spaces. Formerly an engineer and an editor, she is currently pursuing a dual MFA in Fiction and Writing for Children and Young Adults from The New School. Her short fiction has appeared in FIYAH Literary Magazine , The Seventh Wav e, and Black Warrior Review . She believes in the power of stories and the power of nature in equal measure. 

Luuk Vulkers is a writer, researcher and curator from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing (Nonfiction) at The New School as a Fulbright Fellow. Before moving to New York City, he studied Art History at the University of Amsterdam, and worked together with contemporary artists on the realization of new works. He regularly contributes essays, features, interviews and criticism to magazines and newspapers. 

Young G. Kim is a writer from Los Angeles and holds a BA in American Literature and Culture from UCLA. Born in Seoul, Korea, he has deep interests in bicultural experiences, but enjoys reading and writing all genres from children’s books to horror. Currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School, he is engaged in crafting creative projects that highlight the narratives of underrepresented immigrants. 

María E. Schmidt is a poet originally from Mexico City. She is fascinated with Latin American literature and poetry and has actively promoted the literary work of many young voices from the region. One of her biggest dreams is to launch a Creative Writing School in Mexico City for children and people who want to heal through the power of words. Lately, you can find her researching about the history of perfumes and scents.  

Emily Elkind is a writer and educator. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the New School where she is writing her first novel. Her fiction centers on queer characters and the complexity of family. She has a Masters in Education from Columbia Teachers College and taught for ten years before pursuing writing full time. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.  

Kelby Clark is a poet and fiction writer, based in Brooklyn, NY, but born and bred across the Hudson in New Jersey. She’s a second-year MFA in Creative Writing student pursuing a dual fiction and poetry concentration at TNS, but over the years her nonfiction writing has appeared in publications such as USA Today and Complex Magazine. She’s also done creative work for mega media brands like MTV, BET, and VH1. Now, she’s focused on expanding her portfolio of poems and finishing her debut novel. Her work explores topics of race and Black identity, as well as topics like the myth of suburban bliss. 

Rebecca Molloy was born and raised in the North West of England and now lives in Brooklyn. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. Her fiction explores complicated women, queerness, and nature, and she has a crush on the moon. She has never written a story without a dog in it. 

Fall 2022 & spring 2023 fellows.

Haleigh Blackwell  is a fiction writer in the Writing for Children and Young Adults concentration of The New School’s MFA in Creative Writing Program. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Film from Baylor University. In her free time, you’ll find her running around Queens and Brooklyn, reading or writing at her local coffee shop, or relaxing in Central Park.

Helena Grande (she/her) is a writer from Madrid, Spain. She is currently living in New York City where she is studying for an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. Her writing practice combines memoir, scientific research, and magic elements. She is the author of the flash fiction collection Speech Choke  (Hocus Bogus Publishing 2020) Her essays and fiction have appeared in Dostoyevsky Wannabe, A*Desk, Fictional Journal, nY, and the Research Catalog, among others.

Younis B. Azeem  was born and raised in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is currently a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a third year at The New School’s MFA Creative Writing Program where his concentration is fiction. You can catch Younis co-hosting The New School’s monthly reading series at the KGB Bar, or at a dollar pizza near you.

Maya Moverman is a writer from New York City. She holds a BA in Written Arts from Bard College and is earning her MFA in Fiction from The New School. She writes about Jewishness and New York City, and is currently working on a novel inspired by her time in the wellness industry.

Grace Shields is so excited to return to George Jackson Academy for another semester of WriteOn! Based in Brooklyn, Grace is a third year MFA student at The New School studying fiction and creative nonfiction. Formerly an organic farmer/educator, she enjoys being outdoors, hands-on learning, and working with young people to make education fun. When not curled up with a book and a strong cup of tea, she can generally be found jumping into the ocean, taking her dog to the park, or sketching out graphic memoir drafts in her spare time. Her work has been featured in Sazeracs Smoky Ink literary magazine. 

Vibha Balaji  is an MFA candidate at The New School. When she is not writing, she can be found in her apartment in Brooklyn, chipping away at an extensive reading list and overwatering her plants. Her short stories are an exploration of South Indian families, mothers and daughters, and the violence of inextricable relationships. She is presently working on a novel that places the same characters in different permutations, drawing on the question of what is altered and what is left unchanged.

Cole Plunkett  loves reading and writing even more than he loves the circus he grew up in with his family. He currently lives in New Jersey, and, while getting his MFA in Creative Writing at The New School, he works as a bookseller at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square, New York. There’s nothing he doesn’t want to try – except for skydiving. 

Madison Ford is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor, currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies and Creative Writing from Columbia University. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The New School’s food writing publication, The Inquisitive Eater  and a Production Assistant at  The Brooklyn Rail . Among her many fascinations are hauntings, miniature horses and the prolific film canon of Nicolas Cage. 

Nicole Baricevic   is a YA Fiction writer from Bayside, Queens. She holds a BA in Biological Sciences from CUNY Hunter College and worked as a research assistant in pediatrics, psychology, and cardiology before coming to The New School. Embracing her passion for reading and love of all things magic, Nicole began to write her very own fantasy novel which led her to apply to the Creative Writing Program. She is currently pursuing an MFA in the Writing for Children and Young Adult concentration. As a former pre-med student, Nicole was taught that healing occurs by using one’s hands. Today, as a writer, she wishes to show the world that healing can occur by using one’s words too.

Charlie Dale   is a trans-masculine, queer, poet, and writer who is currently an MFA Candidate at The New School. They have tutored in writing for over four year and have spoken at several Cultivating Voices Poetry Pride Parades and the KGB Red Room. They strive to cultivate a world of liberation through vulnerability – both on the page and in the world. 

Lizz Dawson   is a writer from York, PA living in New York City. She’s a nonfiction MFA candidate at The New School. Lizz worked as an editorial intern at Creative Nonfiction magazine and as an editorial assistant for Story Magazine . Currently, she is an editorial associate at  Teachers & Writers Collaborative.  You can find her work online at  Story, Peatsmoke Journal, Bending Genres, Elephant Journal,  and  Hayden’s Ferry Review.  You can find her newsletter,  Hangry Ghost, on Substack. 

Sophie Brown   is in the MFA Creative Writing program at The New School in the Nonfiction concentration. She is a writer, critic and  documentary creative consultant for filmmakers. She reviews projects for the Sundance Institute’s Sandbox Fund and is a Documentary Programme Advisor for the BFI London Film Festival. 

Remie Arena is from New Orleans, Louisiana. She is currently living in New York City where she is pursuing an MFA in creative writing with a focus in fiction at The New School. She holds a BA from New York University in journalism and English Literature with a minor in history. In her free time, you can find Remie lounging with a book in a park, painting, or simply listening to music and meandering around the city (one of her favorite activities).  

Jason Chun is a writer from San Francisco, California, currently pursuing his MFA in Fiction at The New School. He has, on occasion, skateboarded to work, performed spoken word poetry in front of strangers, and stood on a table to emphasize a point. He loves science fiction, grunge rock, and warm cafes. 

Luopu Malakla  is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at The New School.

Fall 2021 & spring 2022 fellows.

Ruth Weissmann  is a writer from Upstate New York and a former breaking news reporter for the  New York Post.  She recently got dual citizenship with Germany and hopes to visit. In her free time she enjoys reading her hometown newspaper, rollerblading, and group chats. 

Waverly Herbert is a fiction writer from Memphis, TN. She loves teaching, reading, walking aimlessly, and talking to animals. Her novel-in-progress explores the intersections of psychology, gender, and politics.

Aurora celestin is a poet, playwright, and fiction writer from manhattan. she holds a ba in creative writing and religion from columbia university. she is now an mfa in creative writing fiction concentrator and french studies graduate minor at the new school; she is also an impact entrepreneurship fellow. her writing often deals with intersectionality and social identity, mental illness, and theological reimaginings. she is passionate about creating more representation in literature and fostering healthy and inclusive spaces in education and religion..

Stone E. Mims is an MFA Candidate in Creative Writing with concentrations in Fiction and Writing for Children and Young Adults at The New School. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Literary Studies and Creative Writing in 2019. Though Stone’s educational life has persisted in the northeast, he has lived the entirety of his life below the Mason Dixon Line in Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently represented by Serendipity Literary Agency.

Jonathan Keshishoglou  often shortens his name to “Jonathan Kesh” or just “Jonny.” He is a writer and journalist from San Jose, California, who is currently living in Queens while pursuing his MFA at The New School. He’s gotten to cover a wide range of news beats from graphic novels to NASA probes to Game of Thrones, and you can find his articles in Mashable, The Rumpus, and Content Magazine. 

Gwen sachs currently lives in new york city where she is studying creative writing with a concentration in fiction at the new school. she received her ba from the college of william and mary. her main teaching experience comes from teaching preschool and english as a second language lessons. she enjoys traveling, hiking, and playing mini golf..

Crysta Garcia  is a NYC native in her second year of the creative writing MFA program at The New School, concentrating in poetry. As a teacher and someone who found writing to be extremely helpful in her mental health, Crysta is very interested in creative writing as a form of expression and therapeutic reflection that can be helpful to children and young adults to process their thoughts and feelings. 

Makayla smith from porcelain clay and other organic minerals of the earth’s surface came a child: nappy headed, damned but loved, and girlish looking. raised by devout christian baby boomers, makayla smith describes her early adolescence as both experimental and intergenerational. her small, rural alabama city, matthews, was a home full of people who built both tangible and abstract things with their hands: watching her grandparents coddle and caress grandchildren back when they were sad, hearing stories of yesterday from her predecessors of how they unified brick and mortar in the spirit of family when there were only two of them (bessie louise williams and edward smith), and where others like herself anxiously anticipated year round to snatch wrapping paper from the bodies of playstation 2 games long lost to nostalgia. video games consoles came first, displaying some type of erudition in its nature. besides, she knew, she understood really, that even if she couldn’t control her reality, then she understood that there was someone else’s that she could. then, writing came in the seventh grade. , fall 2020 & spring 2021.

Tidenek Haileselassie studied communication and worked as a consultant with international nonprofits in Ethiopia, where she is from, before joining The New School, where she is pursuing a dual concentration in fiction and creative nonfiction as a second year MFA student. In her spare time, Tidenek likes to travel and explore the place where she’s local through a traveler’s eyes.

Rob madison is pursuing an mfa in fiction at the new school.  his interests include prose style, depictions of inner life, literary criticism, long-form profiles, and steamed broccoli..

Ladane Nasseri is a journalist and writer living in New York City. She is a former Middle East correspondent for Bloomberg News, and has reported from Tehran, Dubai, and Beirut. Ladane has an MA in international relations from Columbia University and is completing her MFA at the New School, focusing on narrative nonfiction and literary journalism. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, Businessweek, Newsweek and McSweeney’s among others. She is a certified yoga teacher and Zen practitioner who likes the sight of foxes, the aroma of coffee beans, the sound of crickets, the taste of matcha, and the fluffiness of her Persian cat.

Jake steinberg is a comedian and screenwriter based in the east village. from la to new york, jake has appeared in various comedy clubs around the country begging people to laugh at him. his dream is to work with or around the character of superman or get heat vision–whichever happens first.

Aekta Khubchandani is a writer and poet from Bombay. She is the founder of poetry plant project, a safe and inclusive space to nourish poems. She is currently earning her MFA in creative writing from The New School in New York. Her recent fiction “Love in Bengali Dialect” is the winner of Pigeon Pages Fiction Contest judged by Julia Phillips. Her poems were awarded the winner of honorable mention by Paul Violi Prize. Her work has been feature in Jaggery Lit, Vayavya, The Aerogram, Sky Island Journal, and elsewhere. Besides this, she has performed spoken word poetry in India, Bhutan, and New York. 

Andre broussard is a writer and essayist based in brooklyn by way of new orleans. he holds a ba in english from loyola university new orleans and is currently studying for his mfa in fiction at tns. he has worked as a bookseller, an english tutor, an editor, a proofreader, a designer, and a salesman, among other things..

Alex Vara is a writer from Mill Valley, California, currently in the second year of her MFA at The New School. Before moving to New York, Alex spent five years teaching and working with preschool through high school students. Her experience includes the Bay School in Blue Hill, Maine, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, and Deer Isle Arts Camp.

Cassie archdeacon is a writer living in brooklyn by way of oyster bay, new york. she holds a b.a. from nyu gallatin, where she concentrated in creative writing and genre studies. cassie is a literary speaking agent and english tutor by day, and a second-year fiction student by night. her work has appeared in gen, elemental, and the nyt metropolitan diary., fall 2019 & spring 2020.

Jude Loscar is a fiction writer from Staten Island with a B.A. in English Literature from Hunter College. They are currently a second year student in the Creative Writing MFA at The New School. Catch them on the Staten Island Ferry, writing the next scene of their novel or crocheting a scarf.

Auriane Desombre is a YA writer currently pursuing an MA in English Literature from NYU and an MFA in Creative Writing for Children & Young Adults from TNS. She holds a BA in English Literature from NYU, and has shared her passion for books through her experience working as an 8th-grade writing teacher.

Zac Ginsburg is a fiction writer from Chicago whose experience as an educator includes teaching creative writing at StoryStudio Chicago, substitute teaching, tutoring, coaching soccer, and volunteering through organizations such as 826NYC. He is in his second year in the Creative Writing MFA at TNS and can be found attending literary events around New York, running on Randall’s Island, and looking for the best chopped cheese sandwich in the city.

Nadja tiktinsky holds a ba in creative writing from southern methodist university and is currently pursuing an mfa in writing for children and young adults at tns. she also works as a bookseller at books of wonder and runs an editorial consulting business..

Olivia-Jane Ureles holds a BA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Writing for Nonfiction at The New School. She hopes to inspire students to write authentically and find joy in expressing their humanity through prose. She also enjoys a nightly scoop of Taro ice cream.

Daniel goulden is a writer, teacher, and born and raised brooklynite. he’s a second-year mfa student at tns, working on a novel based upon the life of zeppo marx., fall 2018 & spring 2019.

Cynthia Amoah is a spoken word artist, performer, and writer originally from Ghana, West Africa. She holds a MFA in poetry from TNS and has been featured on the stages of TEDx Drew University and TEDx Ohio State University. When she is not found writing or performing, Cynthia enjoys travelling, spending time with family, and wandering museums.

Kiri milburn is from melbourne, australia. she is a former litigation lawyer and holds a mfa in fiction from tns. when she isn’t writing, she’s teaching yoga or tending to her alpacas, donkeys, sheep and goats at her small farm in upstate ny..

Candice Ralph holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She is writing a novella as well as a series of picture books.

Jillian fraker has an mfa in nonfiction from tns. she is writing a memoir and currently teaches in nantucket., fall 2017 & spring 2018.

Luthfun J. Nahar is a formerly undocumented writer from Sanddwip, Bangladesh. She is a co-founder of Atlas:DIY, an immigrant youth center. Luthfun holds a Bachelor’s in English Education from Hunter College and enjoys teaching in NYC public high schools. She holds an MFA in Fiction from TNS.

Jessica gross ’s writing has appeared in the los angeles review of books, the new york times magazine, longreads, and the paris review daily, among other places. she holds an mfa in fiction from tns. she is working on a novel about freud..

Yasmin is a MFA graduate from TNS.

Lauren routt moved to nyc from miami, fl to pursue her mfa in poetry at tns. she studied latin american studies and education at haverford college and proceeded to work as an educator for teach for america in miami. passionate about education and poetry, lauren is excited to begin working for writeon as a creative writing teacher. in her free time, lauren enjoys attending music festivals, wandering the insides of museums, and sharing her musings on being a young woman in ny on her blog., grady granos is a teacher and writer of prose fiction and screenplays with a background in film production. hailing from minnesota, he lived for many years in sweden, england, and china, which has informed both his creative work and his approach to education., fall 2016 & summer 2017.

José Garcia graduated from the Creative Writing Program at TNS. His writing and interviews have appeared in Guernica, Lit Hub, The Millions, Words without Borders, and Slice Literary Magazine. He is a Fulbright scholar from Guatemala.

Nicole starczak is a graduate of tns’s creative writing mfa program. she had taught at tns and is the former director of the santa barbara writers conference. she is currently working on a novel..

Elise Burchard is an MFA graduate from TNS. She is an unpublished but aspiring writer and her sketch comedy has been featured in the Mary Scruggs Works by Women Festival of the Second City Family Chicago.

Krisanne Madaus , while teaching this course, was a production assistant at Vanity Fair and an MFA graduate in Fiction from TNS. She was working to complete her collection of linked stories inspired by her hometown, and her work has been published by Springgun Press.

Spring 2016.

A.E. Osworth has served as Education Director for WriteOn! They received their MFA in fiction from TNS in 2016. Their first novel is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing.

Catherine bloomer is the associate director of writeon, providing pedagogical support to the fellows and organizing the final readings. she teaches italian language and is a phd candidate at columbia university. she holds a m.phil. and a m.a. in italian from columbia. she holds a mfa in fiction from tns..

Creative Writing at the Library

We will work on a writing prompt and discuss an aspect of craft. Share your work in a friendly environment and talk about writing. Open to all adults. No experience necessary. Please bring a notebook. Located in the community room, third floor.

• Audience: Adults

College & Career Pathways (CCP): College and Career Pathways: Creative Writing Workshop

Join us at the Van Cortlandt Teen Center for this in-person event on Friday, April 12th at 3:30 pm, to get your creative juices flowing! We will be playing various creative writing games focused on narrative structure. You do not need to have any experience with creative writing to attend this workshop! Just bring yourself and a good attitude to join! All materials will be provided to those who participate. 

*Patrons must be 13-18 years old to attend.

• Audience: Teens/Young Adults (13-18 years)

Encourage Students to Visit the Writing Centers!

4/11/2024 By | Kate Navickas

The KNIGHTLYnews is an online forum where FWS instructors and other teachers of writing can swap and share ideas for best classroom practice. Weekly posts are designed to help teachers develop lesson plans and writing assignments, and respond to classroom challenges by introducing new teaching tools and sharing emerging pedagogical ideas. Posts also direct readers to program and campus resources that support teaching and learning, and provide opportunities for peer collaboration and mentorship.

As we approach the end of the semester, you are likely challenging students with more complex writing and even research projects, so I write today to ask for your continued support and promotion.

Specifically, please remind students of the following:

Writing Center tutors can support all writers, at any stage of the writing process, on any project. Students are encouraged to make an appointment to simply brainstorm assignments, talk-out ideas, understand feedback on their writing, and revise and refine drafts. Working with a tutor can be an especially productive way to get re-energized about a writing project or simply get started!

  The CWC loves walk-in appointments, but students can also make appointments by registering here:  https://cornell.mywconline.net/

The Cornell Writing Centers locations and schedule are as follows:

3:00-5:00, M-Th Rockefeller 178 Mann Library, Consultation Area   7:00-10:00, Sun-Th Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall B06 Olin Library 403  Uris Library 108 Online

Thank you, in advance, for your continued support of the Cornell Writing Centers! We look forward to future conversations about writing with you and your students!

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