September Community Outreach
Dear Friends of Project Write Now:
This summer, we’ve watched our teens step into leadership roles as they’ve shared their love of writing with our community and beyond!
From mentoring younger writers and creating original PWN Teen content to documenting community stories, they’re building confidence, inspiring others, and making a meaningful impact along the way.
Teen Internship Program
Our Teaching Assistant interns are spending the summer alongside younger writers. From inspiring rising ninth graders at Red Bank Regional’s Summer Slam to mentoring younger writers in Teen Writing Space, they’re encouraging new ideas, asking thoughtful questions, and helping students discover the confidence to put words on the page.
Behind the scenes, our Editorial Assistants are giving PWN Teen a fresh voice through Instagram takeovers, Bridge Ink graphics, book recommendations, and articles for Real Voices Write Now. At the same time, interns in The Interview Project have partnered with Asbury Park Public Library to document the stories of members and staff to be published in a feature issue of Bridge Ink later this year.
We’re so grateful to these teens for the energy, generosity, and heart they bring to Project Write Now!
Celebrating Skyla & Allie!
At our PWN Teen Café Open Mic at The Art of the Bean & Leaf, we had the joy of recognizing two teens who have become an important part of the Project Write Now community. Over the years, Skyla Bicca and Allie Lin have contributed their time and talents in countless ways—from Teen Writing Space and teen open mics to Firefly: Stories on Stage and our annual Community Celebration—always ready to lend a hand wherever it was needed.
In recognition of their many contributions, we were honored to present each of them with a $500 scholarship from the Judith M. Chauhan “Make a Difference” Fund. As they begin their next chapter, we can’t wait to see where their journeys take them. We’ll miss them, but they will always have a home at Project Write Now.
Skyla and Allie’s journey is a reminder that, no matter our age, we all need spaces where our voices are welcomed and our stories can be shared.
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.
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—“Bee,” “Rock,” “Travel,” and “Extra.” 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 August’s Morning Pages and write with us on weekdays through the month. We are so grateful for the community that has formed around starting our days with words on a page!
Parker Life
We have been facilitating a weekly write-in for older adults at Parker Life who have a writing itch they want to scratch. It’s a true pleasure to provide a single seed of a prompt and watch it bloom into something magical where more than fifteen people want to share what they’ve written! Seeing their faces light up from a forgotten memory they’re rediscovering and sharing it with others is such a joy. These six weeks are just flying by. It’s a truly rewarding experience to meet new people from all over the country and learn what their names mean, where they’re from figuratively and literally, and which teachers had profound effects on them. We can’t wait to provide new prompts and see where their memories take them next!
PWN Teen Café Open Mic
We had so much fun at our PWN Teen Café Open Mic at The Art of the Bean & Leaf in Asbury Park! We kicked off the evening with a special surprise for two of our incredible teen interns/ambassadors—Skyla & Allie. Knowing Skyla and Allie are about to go off to college, we wanted to give them something back for all their hard work with us. So we gifted them cards, flowers, little presents, and our big surprise: scholarship money from The Judith M. Chauhan “Make a Difference” Fund! Skyla then took over the mic as our host of the evening with new intern Sangbrita giving prompts between the readers. We were so grateful for Sangbrita prompting us as it invited those who came without something to share to write something new and join us on the mic. Thank you to all the brave readers who shared your words with us and thank you also to those who came to support. It was a powerful evening filled with love, creativity, and magic! Our next PWN Teen Café Open Mic is TBD. Stay tuned!
PWN Teen Summer Interns
- Teaching Assistants
We have an awesome new group of teen teaching assistants who will be helping us out in our summer programs this year. Some will be working with our youth programs, some will be working with our outreach programs, and most will be taking turns leading Teen Writing Space. We love this teen leadership program and can’t wait to see our TAs in action!
- Editorial Assistants
Our Editorial Assistants met for training on July 7 and instantly we knew this would be an incredible group of teen interns. After doing a little writing and sharing to get to know one another, we jumped into our summer assignments and shared ideas for new projects. We especially loved how they immediately took initiative, sharing contact information so they can work together through these summer months. Some will be working on our social media platforms, some more behind the scenes. All will be writing articles for Real Voices Write Now. Stay tuned to see their hard work!
- The Interview Project
The interns participating in The Interview Project have officially completed their training! This year, The Interview Project partnered with the Asbury Park Public Library, and the interns will interview someone connected with the library to draft stories that honor their work and highlight the library’s mission to support life-long learning, foster community engagement, and meet the diverse needs of the community. Stay tuned to read their stories!
Shore House
After a guided sound meditation, teen intern Sangbrita had us all become investigative journalists for the hour, where we picked through trinkets that she brought in and answered questions about them to create characters and a plot. One writer shared a piece he came up with about a witch creating a spell inspired by a candle holder. Another shared a Whodunit-style piece inspired by a pair of glasses, and another shared a story they were creating about a dentist inspired by a candle wick trimmer that looked like it could be a dental tool. Everyone had a blast creating stories to go with our found objects. We are so grateful to teen intern Sangbrita and look forward to welcoming her back for our next two sessions in August, as well!
Summer Slam (Red Bank Regional)
We loved coming back to Red Bank Regional for Summer Slam again this year. We had four amazing groups back to back join us for some creative writing time. With the help of our interns Nidhi, David, and Téa, we introduced each group to Project Write Now by reading the collaborative poem written by our teaching assistant interns at the start of the summer. We decorated notebooks to make them our own, then we created writing prompts for each other by each writing two random words on notecards to redistribute as inspiration. We lifted our favorite lines from the day and wrote them on a giant piece of paper to create a collaborative form of creative expression from all of the Summer Slam participants. It was a great day!
Teen Writing Space
We have been having so much fun at Back to Nature for Teen Writing Space! We kicked off our first class of the session with teen leader Skyla who had an awesome lesson around poetry and metaphor. We read “Baby Love” by Courtney Kampa and after discussing the piece, we tried our hands at writing our own metaphors. Then we read “The Word” by Tony Hoagland and discussed his use of the word “sunlight” running through the poem. We then tried writing our own pieces circling around a word in a similar fashion. Teen leader Nidhi ran our second class, sharing excerpts from two of her favorite texts: “Mash-Up Love” by Alexia Arthurs and “Extra” by Yiyun Li. We talked about how in both pieces, there was an object or a person that the story centered around. We tried writing our own pieces inspired by that style. In both classes, we ended with a little “open mic” where we shared pieces we’ve been working on outside of class as well.
Teen Arts NJ Youth Arts Initiative: Ice Cream Writing Workshop
We had an absolute blast hosting an Ice Cream Writing Workshop as part of the Teen Arts NJ Youth Arts Initiative at Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park. More than 50 students and their families showed up for our pop-up writing workshop, which included a complimentary cup of three different flavors and textures of vegan ice cream from Cookman Creamery—a perfect way to stay cool on a hot summer day. Participants were all given journals, pens, stickers, prompts, temporary tattoos, as well as a creative, supportive space and were encouraged to seek inspiration from the sights, sounds, smells, feels and the overall sensory experience of “consuming” the ice cream, visual art, and prompts alike. We were so delighted to see a beautiful cross-section of local students from some of the schools and other community partner organizations we’ve worked with over the years, as well as meet some new faces, including some folks who drove over an hour to join us. Incredible! It was truly amazing to see and hear some of the words and pictures created by the participants. Kudos to all who carved out the time to create. Bonus points to the brave souls who shared what they wrote. Huge thanks to everyone who participated and supported this workshop!
Write Out Loud (Asbury Park)
Another Write Out Loud in the books—literally! On July 14, we spent the night among the bookshelves of Asbury Book Cooperative, drawing inspiration from authors across genres. We chose several authors to create one pagers for that included blurbs about them, their pictures, and excerpts from pieces of their work. We put these in envelopes, wrote clues about their careers on the front of them, and gave writers the opportunity to go on a blind date with the author that resonated with them most. As always, imaginations ran free and our group (FULL of new members, might we add!) made magic together. Join us for our next Asbury Park Write Out Loud on Tuesday, August 11!
Write Out Loud (Red Bank)
Our first Red Bank Write Out Loud at Crazy Story Books was such a hit! We’re so grateful for this new partnership! Inspired by Shanda McManus’ new memoir Brother Epistles, we practiced the art of letter writing together. Some chose to write to loved ones, others to enemies, and some chose to write to fictional characters they’ve created. We are so grateful to all who came out and joined our writing community. Join us for the next one on August 19!
Writing Among Books: A Summer Pause for Educators
We were thrilled to have Crazy Story Books as both our event space and our inspiration for our educator workshop this month. We walked around the bookstore selecting titles that spoke to us. Then we highlighted lines from our selections to use as writing prompts—one beautiful phrase, one surprising word, one vivid image, and one complete sentence. After a powerful share circle, we pulled genres from a cup and went back to the shelves to select new books to inspire us again. We read from pages we might not normally ever gravitate toward and found new ways into our own stories. We are so grateful to all of the educators that joined 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 23 seats totaling $7,035. For information about our scholarship program or to become a valuable donor providing these seats, please email Jennifer Chauhan at jennifer@projectwritenow.org.
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