Category Archives: wits alliance

WITS International

This week the US president is in Slovenia. Next week: WITS Writer Merrilee Cunningham!

Merrilee will spend three weeks of her summer vacation bringing creative writing to students in Macedonia and Slovenia. This international WITS expedition was organized by Amy Storrow, a Department of State member who is stationed in Skopje, Macedonia. Amy was the WITS Program Director in the mid-90s. Merilee will be reporting back about her adventures in eastern Europe, and we will post them here.

posted by Robin Reagler, Writers in the Schools

[photo by Aleksandra Radonic via flickr]

Posted by WITS Houston. Categories: event, Houston, teaching, wits alliance, writers in the schools. Tags: eastern europe. Leave a comment

Oct. ’07

Are You Mad?

This spring I met a cool high school teacher at a writing conference who supervises an online forum for young writers. If you’re are a student who’s interested in either creative writing or subversive approaches or both, check out MAHC today.

MAHC is a community that couldn’t be much more diverse. It includes:

Journalists, photographers, a college dean, a city attorney, three ex-cons, a folklorist, a horse race handicapper, a chef, a suburban housewife turned environmental activist, a novelist, a software designer, a stand up comic, a couple of teachers, a salsa dancer, a coffee roaster, a real estate consultant, some high school and college students, a lesbian couple, a couple of moms, a psychiatrist, a few dads, a British actress, a really savvy 12-year old, two cartoonists, one street musician, and a guy who manages a Blockbuster in Canada are among those who compose our forum.

And that’s a quote.

There are publishing opportunities galore, both on the site and elsewhere. If you think you’re mad enough, check it out.

Posted by WITS Houston. Categories: publishing, spoken word, student, wits alliance, writers in the schools. Leave a comment

Jun. ’07

Sisters

I sit thinking

Thinking if I respect myself

If my temple is truly sacred

If I am filled with the strength of my ancestors

If I am a real woman, a woman of old

If I am the voice of my lost sisters

I sit thinking.

“My Thoughts,” by Ardella Williams, Southwestern High School, Detroit, published in Digging Up, Vol. 7

Check out the great story about our sister program, InsideOut, in this great article from the Detroit Free Press which concludes with a quote from Peter Markus:

“Every student in America — not only in Detroit — needs the kind of exposure to poetics that the InsideOut writers bring to the schools we currently serve. The imagination needs to be fed and fostered, or else it’ll simply dry up and fade away. If you ask a kid to dream, he’ll dream.”