Dear Writers,
There's a line from a Kenneth Koch poem that I think of often: "How lucky to run into you / when everything was possible." This is a sentiment I felt several times this year, chatting with Writing Institute students on the phone, hearing you all read at our Community Readings, celebrating our 40th anniversary, and hosting new events in Yonkers and beyond. What I feel as part of the Writing Institute community is that intersection of luck and possibility: we all have stories to tell, and we are here to witness each other on our writing journeys.
As we close out the year, we wanted to celebrate all of our accomplishments in 2023, our 40th anniversary year. Read on for our year in review, and we hope you'll take a moment to recognize your own writing milestones this year.
Here's to more writing and storytelling in 2024!
Best,
Courtney Gillette
Director, The Writing Institute
Happy Birthday to The Writing Institute! We kicked off 2023 as our 40th anniversary year with lots of celebrations in store. The Writing Institute first opened its doors to the local community in 1983, and we’ve been writing together ever since. To mark the occasion, this year we established The Writing Institute Scholarship Fund to create even greater access to our classes and workshops.
In its first year, we’ve received more than 100 applications and have been able to welcome dozens of writers into our community from near and far. The Writing Institute Scholarship Fund allows us to continue this great work together, and we look forward to welcoming more writers next year!
In February, we continued the celebrations by announcing our 2023 craft lecture series! The first author we welcomed to the virtual classroom to the Writing Institute was award-winning YA author Malinda Lo. Malinda spoke with more than 80 Writing Institute students about the revision process. Along the way, she showed us how she revised her National Book Award winning novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club. Stay tuned for more craft lectures in the future!
It’s never too late to publish your debut novel! In April 2023 we hosted longtime Writing Institute instructor Marcia Bradley MFA '17 for the launch of her debut novel The Home for Wayward Girls (HarperCollins). More than 100 people joined us in person and online to hear Marcia speak about her journey from MFA student to publication. The Home for Wayward Girls was named one of Goodreads buzziest novels of 2023. Congratulations, Marcia!
Since 2007 we’ve partnered with Yonkers Public Schools to bring promising young writers to campus for creative writing workshops. In April and May, we hosted 45 students, nominated by teachers and principals, for exciting creative writing workshops taught by current MFA students. This is one of our most beloved programs, with returning families and a long tradition of encouraging middle and high school students as creative writers (some young writers even read at the SLC Poetry Festival Open Mic!)
In June, we hosted two outstanding events for our local community. Books on the Barge brought together climate fiction and creative food for a unique event hosted with Tables of Contents and Groundwork Hudson Valley. We invited author Allegra Hyde to read on the Science Barge with food inspired by her story collection, The Last Catastrophes, served by Chef Evan Hanzcor & Tables of Contents. A pop-up thunderstorm pushed us inside at CURB, but the merriment continued (and the turtles seemed to enjoy the reading as well).
Later in the month, we welcomed poet Cynthia Manick, novelist Helen Schulman and novelist (and Writing Institute instructor) Barbara Josselsohn to our Wrexham Road Reading Series. It was a treat to celebrate each of these writers’ new books!
Our craft lecture series continued in July with a fantastic session with award-winning author Deesha Philyaw! The author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (soon to be an HBO Max series), Deesha’s virtual talk on how to raise the stakes in fiction wowed us all. We’ll never forget how our graduate student assistant Kayla yelped when we told her Deesha was doing a craft lecture for us. Thanks to everyone who joined us for this memorable event!
In August, it was time for Writers’ Week again! Our popular pre-college creative writing and performance arts day camp returned for its 24th year, with sessions online and on campus. In August we hosted our on campus session with 82 teen writers to explore writing and theater with our MFA teaching artists. Everyone participated in creative writing workshops, as well as their choice of specialty classes on screenwriting, playwriting, writing for musicals, improv comedy and more!
Back to school! As the campus comes back to life in September we kicked off the Fall semester with one of our beloved Community Readings. More than 30 writers from around the world joined us on Zoom to read from their works-in-progress, including featured reader Kristine Marx. We’re so glad that we can welcome students locally and from across the globe to write with us.
On October 5th, it was time to throw a party! Bestselling author Jami Attenberg, creator of the grassroots #1000WordsofSummer writing community, joined us in Bronxville for this special event. We invited our entire community: current and past students and instructors from our 40-year history to celebrate the Writing Institute with a craft lecture from author Jami Attenberg about how to carve out a creative life (MFA optional!). After her talk, she was joined by Electric Literature Editor-in-Chief Denne Michele Norris MFA ‘12 for a Q&A, followed by a toast and more at our reception. Here’s to the next 40 years!
In November, we returned for our second writing workshop residency at Ella Fitzgerald Academy in Yonkers as part of the YPS 21st Century Grant program. Over the course of 18 weeks, we’ll host MFA students to teach young writers from the 1st through 8th grades in an after-school enrichment program. The first session just ended, and we brought authors Sayantani DasGupta and Janae Marks for special surprise author visits!
We closed out the year by hosting our in-person Community Reading & Winter Celebration, with featured reader and instructor Janet Pfeffer MFA '22. We had a full house, with more than 30 people in the cozy Slonim Living Room on campus. We also welcomed instructors Ines Rodrigues and Barbara Josselsohn to read, as well as eight wonderful Writing Institute students. We can’t wait until we can all gather again! Here’s to a new year of writing and sharing stories together!