
We empower young people to write their own stories.
An exciting, challenging, and supportive community where young authors thrive
Based in Washington Heights, Uptown Stories offers after-school, weekend, and summer creative writing workshops for children ages 8-18, led by rockstar teachers, who are also professional authors and artists.
Students learn the art and craft of writing, how to revise their work, and how to give and receive constructive feedback. Each workshop ends with a celebratory reading at the Word Up Bookshop in Washington Heights, and the publication of a paperback anthology, so every student leaves our program as a published author.
To ensure our program is accessible to our ethnically and economically diverse community, our tuition is “Pay-What-You-Can.” Uptown Stories creates an exciting, challenging, and supportive community where young authors thrive.
Why Creative Writing?
We believe that writing is an essential tool for:
Anna
Student
Lori
Parent
Joseph
Student
Xanthe
Student
Graydon
Alumnus
Kimberly
Parent
Annie
Parent
Nina
Parent
Ready to Join a Workshop?
Lift your words off the page, and breathe life into them through rhythm, rhyme, and improvisation. In Spoken Word, everything you are is all that you need. Want to dance? Make your poetry move. Love to rap or write songs? Use your musical impulse. Your body, your voice, your beat — they are the story.
Guided by poets past and present, we’ll find inspiration in the words of Mahogany L. Brown, Elizabeth Acevedo, Rudy Francisco, and many more. By combining the thoughtfulness of writing with the freedom of performance, after 12 weeks, you’ll know just how to bring your story to life on the mic. Join us!
Do you want to be wild and break out of the limitations that are always being set? Poetry is the answer. We’re strapping on our shoes, grabbing our pens, and meeting at the P.S. 187 school yard to go on a poet’s adventure! Poetry is a way of seeing things outside the boxes they are always being put in. We'll be rejuvenated by the nature of Ft. Tryon park and emboldened by our resilient neighborhood. We'll explore the wilds of language out in the world, allowing a stream of poetry to flow from the river of possibility.
If you can’t wait to turn the page, the writer has succeeded in telling you a great story. What does it take to develop characters, settings, dialogue, and plot elements that have you on the edge of your seat? This workshop answers those questions and more! We’ll breakdown the parts of fiction writing each week and test out what we’ve learned with some on-the-spot writing. You’ll work with your peers, too — giving advice and feedback, while hearing what they have to say about your work.
Not only does this workshop make you a better writer, but when you understand the process, it makes you appreciate your favorite writers even more. Don’t leave us on the edge of our seats — register now for this workshop!