April Community Outreach

Here’s what else we’ve been up to this month. If you are interested in bringing a community outreach program to your school or mission-based organization, email Meredith Z. Avakian, Director of Community Outreach & Engagement, at meredith@projectwritenow.org.

Asbury Park Poetry Crawl

We had so much fun at the first-ever Asbury Park Poetry Crawl! On Sunday, April 19, we joined forces with Asbury Book Cooperative & Asbury Park Public Library to host an entire afternoon of free poetry events throughout the city of Asbury Park in celebration of National Poetry Month. The festivities kicked off at noon at Asbury Park Public Library with a poetry reading with ABC’s Lunar Flowers Poetry Club. Participants all read their favorite poems by published authors on the theme of spring. Then we headed downstairs for an engaging Children’s Poetry & Craft workshop. At 3 p.m., we gathered in the serene greenhouse of Kula Urban Farm for our signature Poetry & Plants event. We wrote poems together in small groups before using the plants around us as inspiration to craft more original poetry. At 5 p.m. we met at ABC to listen to the five winners of their Poetry Contest Showcase share their work. And we closed the day across the street at The Art of the Bean and Leaf with our PWN Teen Café Open Mic, during which our teen writers took to the mic to share their original work. Many thanks go to Asbury Park Public Library, Asbury Book Cooperative, Kula Urban Farm, and The Art of the Bean and Leaf for hosting, and to all who came out to celebrate the power of poetry. It truly was an inspiring day!

Bridge Ink 10.4 Voice & Verse Issue

Our latest issue of Bridge Ink, Volume 10, Issue 4, is a special issue featuring the winners of PWN Teen’s 2026 Voice & Verse writing contest. We received more than 100 submissions to this contest from teens all over the world, and we are so proud to present this year’s winners. Check it out now. Congratulations to our winning writers!

Ekphrasis: Of Voices & Vision (Red Bank Art Alliance)

We celebrated National Poetry Month in a really fun and unique collaboration with Nikki Nordquist and the Art Alliance of Monmouth County in Red Bank. We ran an ekphrastic poetry workshop for those who attended—an eclectic group of writers, visual artists, and even Scott Ivory, a local guitarist! After Anthea Brown shared her success story, we explained and shared a personal example of what an ekphrastic poem is, and then gave prompts for how to study visual art with a writer’s eye. After roaming around the studio studying amazing art, we gathered again to share what we wrote. It was such an amazing experience and opportunity to meet creative minds! Together we enjoyed an evening of creativity, conversation, and connection. We left with full hearts and the hope for more opportunities to bring together artists of all kinds to challenge and stretch creative minds so we can all walk away feeling a little more enriched than we were before.

Lunchtime Write-In

Writers continued to meet virtually on Fridays for Lunchtime Write-In to write and share original stories and poems. This month, we explored themes for National Poetry Month—“Most Quoted Lines of Poetry,” “Lines from ‘Writing Prompt’ by Michael Torres,” “Poetry Society,” and “Writing (as idioms).” We love the writing community that has formed in this group and we are always open to welcoming new participants. Lunchtime Write-In meets on Fridays at 12:15 p.m. ET. Join us for our next Lunchtime Write-In to see what our upcoming theme will be!

Morning Pages 

Committed writers continued to meet on Zoom for Morning Pages for an hour every weekday, from 8 to 9 a.m. ET. Want to join us? Sign up for May’s Morning Pages and write with us any weekday through the month. We are so grateful for the community that has formed around starting our days with words on a page!

Play it Forward

And that’s a wrap! One more six-week session of Play It Forward has come to a successful close. The group song was about a ghost, which wasn’t surprising as the Woman’s Club of Red Bank inspires songs about being haunted! We’ve never seen any ghosts at the old Anthony Reckless estate, but it’s always inspirational to think of the many people who have come in and out of what was once a beautiful home. And speaking of homes, our own Sasha Perskie will be moving to her new home this fall. Sasha has been accepted to U of Penn! Congratulations, Sasha! The team at Project Write Now is thrilled. It’s been wonderful to watch Sasha over the years as she grew from a Songwriting student to a Songwriting mentor. We’ll miss her!

PWN India (adults)

Our executive director was surprised by intern Khushreet during their session on Friday, April 3. Khushreet brought in a poem by Kamala Das to help honor the 17-year passing of Jennifer’s father, who emigrated from India. The group continued journaling to poetry during the next session, taking a lighter turn with the poem “Love Poem to Taco Bell” by Rebecca Bornstein. It’s always wonderful to connect over continents through writing and sharing.

PWN India (teens)

We leaned into National Poetry Month with our teen writers in India. We read “Today” by Billy Collins and wrote about the days we were having. We also stole the line “If ever there were” and used it as a writing prompt. We discussed what poetry is to us and we took a bunch of the most quoted lines of poetry and used them as launching points for new works of our own. We read “Time Passes” by Joy Ladin, personified Time in our own works, and wrote about our favorite times. We read “Bio” by Kathy Evans and wrote our own unique bio poems by listing the things that no one knows are true about us and also listing the things that are not true about us. And we read “Fun” by Patricia Fargnoli and personified emotions.

Red Bank Middle School AVID (in-school) 

We were so excited to have intern Sloane Massey visit our 7th & 8th grade AVID classes at Red Bank Middle School to discuss her project with Clean Ocean Action and ways the students can get involved. She invited students to make their own “rain gardens” after explaining the benefits and how she is going about trying to create one in her community. We also spent time revising our pieces for our final end-of-year anthology project. We can’t believe it’s almost the deadline for publishing already. Time flies when you’re having fun!

Shore House 

For one lesson, we focused on food at Shore House, reading a fun rhyming poem called “Little Bit of Food” after kicking off with a guided meditation to ground us in the room. We made lists of our favorite foods and then added lines about what makes each item so special to us—what it tastes like, what it reminds us of, how we like to enjoy it. For another lesson, we read two short poems about emotions as characters and then tried personifying emotions in our own works. We asked ourselves questions like: If this emotion were an animal, what animal would it be? How does this emotion distort or change our bodies? Where might we find it or what place best represents that feeling? We had a blast writing with Shore House, as always!

Soldier On

We are excited to bring writing to Soldier On, a veterans’ community in Tinton Falls. Each meeting, we read short memoir pieces and then write together. This group of writers eagerly shares their stories and perspectives—from short memoir pieces to powerful poems. We look forward to our meeting each week!

Womyn’s Worth – Lunch Break

We were honored to be part of the Womyn’s Worth Graduation, held on Saturday, April 8, at Lunch Break. Over the course of the eight-week program, participants explored themes of self-love, family, and community, and at the celebration, each womyn shared reflections on what they discovered along the way. We are continually inspired by the courage and openness of these womyn, who so generously share their hopes, dreams, and stories. Thank you so much to Shani Love of Lunch Break, Pam Major of Melia Bloom, and the Grunin Foundation for your support and for including Project Write Now! 

Write Out Loud 

In celebration of National Poetry Month, our April Write Out Loud focused on all things poetry and springtime. We shared the names of our favorite poets, participated in a “word circle”—which included a fun rhyming activity. We did a poetry write-around, creating communal poems. In honor of her last time as the lead facilitator of Write Out Loud, PWN staffer Meredith Avakian (and her daughter) recited a poem from her poetry books, prior to kicking off our poetry freewrite, which also was inspired by all things spring.

Youth Journaling Club (Asbury Park Public Library) 

We returned to Asbury Park Public Library for the spring edition of our Youth Journaling Club in the heart of National Poetry Month.  We celebrated by reading poetry, writing poems and sharing some of our favorite things about springtime.  We also decorated our journals with fun stickers, themed for Poetry Month. This is a free, weekly offering targeting middle school students, though all are welcome. Our first week included writers from elementary, middle and high schools in Asbury Park. 

Scholarship Seats

Through our mission as a nonprofit organization, we remove barriers to participating in our fee-based classes by providing full and partial scholarship seats as well as payment plans. In 2025, we provided 45 seats totaling $12,619.00. So far for 2026, we’ve offered 13 seats totaling $3,365. For information about our scholarship program or to become a valuable donor providing these seats, please email Jennifer Chauhan at jennifer@projectwritenow.org.