September Community Outreach
Dear Friends of Project Write Now:
There is something powerful about speaking your words out loud, knowing others are listening.
It takes courage to move those words written privately on the page and share them with a wider audience, even with strangers.
But then something happens. The words are no longer yours alone. They are heard, received, and a connection forms between writer and listener.
A connection that can deepen understanding, generate empathy, and remind us of what we share.
Voices of Hope & Stories from the Heart at ¡Festejo!
For our young adult writers, this experience happened as they read original pieces, written in response to the plays at Two River Theater’s Festejo: Celebrating Latine Stories Onstage event.
To share their words on stage alongside professional playwrights and actors gives young writers the experience of having their own voices, their own stories valued.
As Daniela shared: “Sharing my piece on stage was a very rewarding experience. It gave me a chance to put my thoughts on paper and step away from all the things happening around me. I would do it over and over if I could simply because of the support and pause it gave me.”
A group of our 7th and 8th grade AVID students also had the opportunity to read their pieces from our end-of-year anthologies at a special event, Stories from the Heart.
Our PWN Teen program director, Lisa Hartsgrove, remembers her first time sharing a story on the Two River Theater stage. In her latest blog, she reflects on that experience—and what it means to now watch her students take the stage and share their own words.
Firefly: Stories on Stage
Our young writers aren’t the only ones finding the courage to share their words.
Eight adults recently shared stories on the theme of FIRE during our Firefly: Stories on Stage event, held at Two River Theater. In addition to five storytellers from the audience, featured storytellers Jenny Morelli, Carmen Balentine, and Melida Rodas shared stories on the fire inside of us, the fire that fuels us to keep going, and the moments when a literal fire mirrors the emotional one we’re experiencing.
As Melida shared: “To be in the room with these amazing storytellers who were funny, touching, moving, and very diverse—different styles, different types of stories. Really important, the audience. Such a respectful, beautiful audience. It felt like they were truly captivated. And I think that’s really important because when we stand before an audience sharing our our vulnerable selves, it’s a very scary thing. To put ourselves out there, we do need to feel safe. I felt safe, I felt welcomed. And I feel like it was a sacred space. I felt like I was among friends. I felt like I was home.”
We are so grateful to Two River Theater for continuing to open its doors and its stage to our writers!
Thank you for being part of a community that continues to create spaces for stories—and for one another.
With love & gratitude,
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.
The Art of Social Justice Summer Preview
We spent a morning with educators giving them a sneak peek of our upcoming 2026-2026 Art of Social Justice season. In collaboration with T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center and Two River Theater, we provide day-long professional development exploring history, theater, and creative writing through a social justice lens. Our upcoming dates are Friday, November 13; Friday, March 12; and Friday, May 14 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is open to all educators—join us!
Bridge Ink 10.4
We are thrilled to release our latest issue of Bridge Ink—Volume 10, Issue 5. This issue brings you writing from New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, India, and Bangladesh! These teen writers are so talented and we are so grateful that they’ve chosen to submit their writing to our journal. Thank you also to our incredible interns for putting this issue together! Read their words for an adventure of a lifetime at bridgeink.org.
Community Playmaking @ Asbury Park Public Library
We are back at Asbury Park Public Library for another round of Community Playmaking, a playwriting program in partnership with Two River Theater. For seven sessions, we guide writers to craft original 10-minute plays, which are then performed by professional actors cast and directed by Two River Theater. The showcase is set for Tuesday, September 29, at 6 p.m. Location coming soon!
¡Festejo! @ Two River Theater: Stories from the Heart
What a joy to see our Red Bank Middle School students take the stage at Two River Theater as part of Stories From the Heart during ¡FESTEJO!: Celebrating Latine Stories Onstage. Five students—two rising 8th graders and three rising 9th graders—read pieces from our end-of-year anthologies, along with collaborative poems they created as a class. We are so grateful to our brave readers, to the receptive audience, to the teachers and staff who showed up in support, and to Two River Theater for including us in this meaningful event year after year.
¡Festejo! @ Two River Theater: Voices of Hope
We are so proud of our young adult writers—Emalyn Donovan, Valeria Lopez, Nathaly Segura, Maria L. Mejia-Tizatl, and Daniela Rojas-Trejo—who also took the stage during Two River Theater’s 15th Annual ¡FESTEJO!: Celebrating Latine Stories Onstage event. Emalyn, Valeria, Nathaly, Maria, and Daniela each wrote a piece illuminating themes from their assigned play and then shared their words before the play’s staged reading. We are so grateful to Two River Theater for giving our writers the opportunity to share their stories in front of a live audience. It’s truly a magical and life-changing experience!
Firefly: Stories on Stage
At Firefly this month, we lit the stage on fire! (Metaphorically, of course.) We are so grateful to all who came out for this inspiring evening of community and connection at the gorgeous Two River Theater. Huge thanks to our featured storytellers (listed in order of appearance): Jenny Morelli, Carmen Balentine, and Melida Rodas. And great job to all of the brave souls who joined us on the mic and shared a true, five-minute-long, first-person story on the topic of fire. Join us for our next Firefly: Stories on Stage this November!
Ink It Up! Summer Camp
We had a blast in our INK IT UP! camp this month! Our young writers brainstormed a FOUR PAGE rough draft of a FOUR BOOK series of a dystopian tale! We had to create a Google document so that they could keep in touch and continue to add to the story throughout the year. We are so inspired by these young writers and can’t wait to read their tetralogy someday!
Lunch Break Storytelling Project
We returned to Lunch Break for a summer storytelling project. We’ve been gathering post lunchtime for an hour of quiet writing and sharing. We love hearing the stories that are emerging and the connections being made. We are so grateful to Lunch Break for providing the space to also nourish our souls.
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 the themes—“Seven,” “Bend,” “Fly,” and “Shape.” 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 & Evening 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 September’s Morning Pages. This month, we also hosted two weeks of Evening Pages, meeting from 9 to 10 p.m. ET for our nighttime writers! We are so grateful for the community that has formed around starting and ending our days with words on a page!
Parker Life
Working with Parker Life’s participants has been such a joy! These amazing people have incredible stories to share and we were humbled to learn how many memories we were able to draw out of them with our prompts—times in their lives they’d completely forgotten about or were never inspired enough to write about until this class. To see their faces light up when they shared their stories just meant everything to us. We would love to forge a long path with this organization, especially once we learned that people were Zooming in from all over the country. Talk about a cool reach Parker Life has! We may have inspired these wonderful souls, but they also inspired us to keep writing because it does change lives.
Project HEAL
As part of our continuous workshop series with Project HEAL / Elevate, we joined some of their teens and staff for a nature-based retreat at Turkey Swamp Park in Freehold. After a fun, informative and educational guided hike led by a professional naturalist, we had a group lunch and culminated with an hour-long writing circle. We wrote about our individual and collective experiences with the hike, including our highlights and thoughts on what we can learn from nature. Everyone seemed grateful for the opportunity to unplug, reset, and recharge in a calm and supportive environment.
Red Bank Middle School Student Packet Pick UP
We loved getting to see so many of our students and community partners at Red Bank Middle School this month. We handed out notebooks and stickers at our table and had quite a few sign-ups for our after-school program. We can’t wait to come back in September!
Red Bank Regional Freshman Orientation
We loved sitting amongst friends and community partners at Red Bank Regional High School, welcoming the incoming freshman and their families at orientation. We met with so many writers at our table and we look forward to seeing some of these faces again in our upcoming Teen Writing Space!
Shore House
Teen intern Sangbrita has been running our summer sessions at Shore House and we love her enthusiasm and creativity! The group has been so inspired! We did a lesson around character building and another lesson around world building. Sangbrita had us answer questions like: “What would your character do if they discovered a mysterious object?” and “If you could add magic to your world, what kind would you add?” The Shore House writers have been super receptive and we love the imaginative ideas they’ve shared. They wrote Sangbrita a card to send her off on her last day with all of their gratitude!
Songwriting Studio @ Red Bank Public Library
We held this summer’s Songwriting Studio at the Red Bank Public Library, a lovely, welcoming space on the Navesink River. And wow, did our group click! We usually get the ball rolling in Songwriting Studio by analyzing songs and generating ideas, but this summer two of the group members generously shared personal stories that took us right into the deep end of writing! Starting with a narrative means diving into a song on a whole other level, and every Songwriting Studio participant rose to the occasion, contributing ideas, lines, rhymes, and their own personal feelings. We’re so grateful to the Red Bank Public Library for partnering with us to offer this program. We’re hoping some of these young songwriters return this fall!
Teen Writing Space
We finished our summer program of Teen Writing Space at Back to Nature this month. Teen leader Anansha ran our third class, where we had a deep discussion about book to screen adaptions. Then we tried fan fiction—rewriting some of our favorite (or not so favorite) scenes. We also used the store itself to inspire new works. We ended with a Write Around where we wrote six collaborative stories together, one sentence at a time. Teen leaders David and Téa ran our last class, where we tried writing about a place or an object without naming what it was and letting the others try and guess. Then we rewrote a simple children’s story, adding sensory details and internal dialogue. We finished with another Write Around where we wrote some of our best pieces together. We’re thrilled to bring Teen Writing Space back virtually through the school year—join us for our next session starting in October!
Write Out Loud @ Asbury Book Cooperative (Asbury Park)
At Write Out Loud Asbury Park, we worked with metaphor and spoke about how there can be an untold story hidden inside of one that may be already familiar to us. Writers picked from six common metaphors and answered thought-provoking questions to come up with origin stories for their chosen metaphors. Many of us chose the same metaphor and during discussion it was revealed that all of our stories had something in common. It seemed that the collective consciousness was asking us to define purpose, as the conversation kept circling back to that. Join us for our next Asbury Park Write Out Loud on Tuesday, September 8!
Write Out Loud @ Crazy Story Books (Red Bank)
We had a blast at our second Write Out Loud Red Bank! After a brief check in, we read “Don’t Go Into the Library” by Alberto Ríos. Then we took lines from the poem and turned them into a treasure hunt through the book store …
– An Animal (It’s like a pet store)
– A Type of Food (or a bakery)
– A Specific Time (Every single time)
– A Scent (The doughnut scent of it all)
– A Texture (Its concrete and wood and glass covers)
After gathering our word treasures, we used our new collections as writing prompts. We loved what everyone came up with and really felt the power libraries can hold—and writers can hold—when we are together! We are so grateful to Crazy Story Books and to all who came out and joined our writing community. We can’t wait to be back again on September 23—join us!
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 27 seats totaling $8,360. For information about our scholarship program or to become a valuable donor providing these seats, please email Jennifer Chauhan at jennifer@projectwritenow.org.
Related posts
