LEADERSHIP TRAINING
We teach teen writers the business of being a writer.
Our organization provides a highly collaborative and creative opportunity for teens to gain experience in leadership, life skill development, community service, and reading, writing, social, emotional, and cultural literacy. Not only will you work collaboratively with other teen and adult members to brainstorm and develop programming, you will develop, create and publish The #TWP Quarterly Lit Zine, and actively engage with teens to recruit, encourage, support, lead, and have fun!
We want to break cycles of generational poverty.
To do so, we address a broad range of transferable skills, including storytelling, smart decision-making, collaborating, prioritizing, active listening, interviewing, financial literacy, communications, career management, relationship-building, and engaging with the community.
We exist as a building block of support to help teen writers live successfully and independently using their skill, talent and creativity in a nontraditional career.
We exist as a building block of support to help teen writers live successfully and independently using their skill, talent and creativity in a nontraditional career.
We work to build economic, racial, and social equity.
When teens leave this program, they will have the knowledge, skills, and access to effectively start a career as a writer, smoothly transition into adulthood, and turn employment challenges into executable, profitable plans.
They will have also developed their storytelling style, adapted their writing to fit target audiences or employers, learned how to write across platforms, and access job leads as professional storytellers while still in high school!
They will have also developed their storytelling style, adapted their writing to fit target audiences or employers, learned how to write across platforms, and access job leads as professional storytellers while still in high school!
We help balance your narrative.
YOU'LL GET
- Experience: working, collaborating and leading with other teens and adults
- Letter of recommendation: when it's time to apply for college or work
- Free Access: to all our events or events we're hosting/presenting
- Volunteerism: verification of hours for community service
- Portfolio: help with your bio, resume and/or digital porfolio
- Promotion: win a contest? on the honor roll? got a new car? Tell us, we'll promote it
- Publication: your work will be published in our Lit Zine
- Community: network and connect with other like-minded teen writers
- Tenure: automatically become a member of our Alumni Network
WE NEED
- Time Management: can you juggle school, work, writing, home and your social life?
- Communication: can you be reached and respond easily and quickly?
- Accountability: can you commit to completing tasks or communicating issues?
- Enthusiasm: are you willing to learn and share skills, knowledge and responsibilities?
- Teamwork: can you work productively and professionally with other team members from around the world?
- Flexibility: are you flexible in a crunch, if necessary, to meet deadlines or help out?
“I am working with #TeenWritersProject because it’s the only space I’ve found that caters to my distinct interests while allowing me to steer the organization itself.” —Lakshmi Sunder, #TWP Intern
TEEN EDITORIAL BOARD
Be a boss! Running meetings, planning projects, developing ideas, writing content, and holding leadership positions is only part of what you'll take on as an intern or a volunteer editorial board member.
Praise, Engagement Editor (Turkey). From West Africa, Nigeria, Praise is a teenage girl who sees the world as a play, and humans, the script writers. When she is not writing in her favorite coffee shop, Praise spends most of her time reading, cooking, traveling up and down the shelves in the public library or catching her favorite Broadway shows. An admitted sports fanatic, Praise feeds her addiction to football by watching seasonal games on Sunday afternoons.
Lakshmi, Content Editor (Texas). Lakshmi (she/her) is passionate about increased diversity in the media. She believes one of the best ways to achieve equity is to make people feel seen in the works they read, listen to, watch, etc. Lakshmi enjoys writing poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction about balancing her Indian heritage with her American upbringing, mental health and wellbeing, and social justice issues. Outside of writing, she enjoys working with activist organizations like Girl Up and Diversify Our Narrative, teaching literacy to younger students, playing piano, and going for runs.