In 2020, I began teaching creative writing at my daughter’s school. There were teacher shortages in the online classrooms, and I jumped in three days a week, teaching on Zoom, doing my very best to help occupy and entertain a class full of bored, sometimes scared, and confused kids. But they weren’t simply children going through a pandemic, they were some of the most creative, eager, and interesting children I’d ever had the privilege of working with.

At that point, I’d already been teaching on and off for about 20 years (preteens through adults), but had never done creative writing with students so young – the truth was that I didn’t even know until then that children between the ages of 6 to 9 could both understand and recreate the subtle intricacies of what goes into making a story great. When the children returned to in-person learning, they wanted to continue writing with me, and I was excited to continue teaching them.

I began a creative writing afterschool program at my daughter’s school, Rogers Park Montessori School, and over the next few years, the program grew quickly, from six students to almost 50. It also became clear to me, especially as my own daughter fell in love with writing and decided she wanted to pursue it with intent, that there were very few places, if any, in our area offering creative writing for elementary school kids. Yet, I had a growing group of dedicated students who continued to amaze me with both what they yearned to take in and what they were putting down on the page. My students were also showing up every week asking for more. They wanted additional classes, wanted to publish their work, submit to contests. I did my best to meet my students requests and started a literary journal for them. When they wanted to sell it at bookstores and have public readings, I worked to make that happen as well. You can now purchase RPMS’ literary journal The Trees at both Women and Children First and Time and a Half Books here in Chicago; we are also currently working on getting The Trees Issue #3 carried by Chicago Public Libraries.

Last year, I began to imagine a place where I could work with even more students, especially those outside of RPMS, a place where a community of young writers could connect and grow together. In January 2026, The Write Room was born. Some students who’ve been with me since my very first class are graduating eighth grade shortly; many others have asked how we can keep writing together after they graduate as well.

The Write Room is for them. It’s for my daughter and for all the other students who’ve spent years discussing complicated characters and pacing and point of view with me, and for the students I haven’t yet met, but who’ve been writing for as long as they can remember and have been waiting to find a group of kids who also know the comfort, escape, and strength that can can be found in a great book.

The Write Room will be launching with camps in the summer of 2026 and will begin holding weekly classes—including adult workshops—in the fall of 2026. I will also continue running the writing program at Rogers Park Montessori School, only beginning in the fall it will be under the umbrella of The Write Room. (I also look forward to bringing The Write Room into more afterschool programs in the future as well.)

As children’s attention spans grow only shorter, and the world around them presents more challenges and questions, The Write Room hopes to provide a safe and engaging space for kids to slow down, read more, explore their own writing, reflect on their emotional health, and find the confidence to create impactful art.