Creative Writing

Learn more about Writopia's Creative Writing program.

Lucian Mattison

Program Manager
Instructor

Lucian Mattison is very excited to be a part of the DC Writopia team! He is the author of two books of poetry, Reaper's Milonga (YesYes Books, 2018) and Peregrine Nation (Dynamo Verlag, 2017). His poetry, short fiction, and translations appear in numerous journals including Hayden's Ferry Review, Hobart, Nano Fiction, The Nashville Review, Puerto Del Sol, and Sixth Finch. Over the past six years, he has also taught creative writing writing workshops for adults, undergraduates, and teens in DC and Norfolk, Virginia. He's thrilled to join Writopia in cultivating a community of young poets and writers who will grow to be the voices we see in magazines and on bookshelves in the future!
Laura Owsiany

Program Manager
Instructor

Laura Owsiany is excited to be a part of Writopia Lab! She first worked with Writopia as an intern in 2015, then joined full-time as Registration Coordinator in 2018. She holds a BA in English from Georgetown University. After graduating, Laura worked as a full-time tutor in McLean, VA, where she mentored students in college essay writing and taught everything from English to Calculus. She previously served as a publishing intern at the nonprofit 826DC. In addition to writing, Laura enjoys reading modernist poetry, podcasting, the outdoors, and frequenting DC’s many free museums.
Rita Feinstein

Program Coordinator & Registration Coordinator

Rita is excited to join the Writopia Lab family! She received her MFA from Oregon State University, where she taught composition and creative writing. Her work has appeared in The Cossack Review, Permafrost, and Grist, among other publications, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets. Life on Dodge, her debut poetry chapbook, is available from Brain Mill Press. She lives with her husband, who is a lawyer, and her dog, who is not.
Talia Sand

Instructor

Talia Sand teaches Language Play workshops at Writopia. She graduated from Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University with a BA in Creative Writing and a Minor in Women's Studies. While there, she served as the editor of the Lifestyle section of Stern College Observer. She eventually became the first female staff member and Creative Editor and Section Editor of the Yeshiva University Commentator. She has served as an intern at Random House Publishing and is currently an event assistant at Eloise Shop at the Plaza. Additionally, she has also served as the lead writer of the Simply Southern Cookbook. She recently graduated from the New School for Creative Writing where she studied under David Leviathan and Sarah Weeks. She is currently working on her first Young Adult novel.
Sarah Bernstein

Instructor

Sarah Bernstein is an award-winning teacher and playwright. Sarah studied playwriting with Paula Vogel at Brown University, and her work has been produced and/or developed with companies throughout the country, including the Lark Play Development Center, the Amoralists, Forward Flux Productions,The Motor Company, the Source Festival, FullStop Collective, Caps Lock Theatre, the American Globe Theatre, Project Y, and the New Voices Project. Her play, Perpetuation, and her adaptation of Les Miserables, will be published by Playscripts, Inc. next year. After falling in love with Writopia through her work on the Worldwide Plays Festival, she is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Writopia's brilliant students and staff as an instructor.
Kathleen McCleary

Instructor

Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels, including House and Home (Hyperion); A Simple Thing (HarperCollins) and Leaving Haven (HarperCollins). Her non-fiction articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and other publications. She has also taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University. When she's not writing, she can be found in the gym, trying to teach herself to do pull-ups. You can find more about Kathleen's work at www.kathleenmccleary.com.
Melanie Howard

Instructor

Melanie Howard is excited to join Writopia Lab as an instructor in the Greater Washington DC area. Melanie is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared online and in print in Time.com, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, SELF, Seventeen, Parenting, Good Housekeeping and other major publications. She is the co-author of the satirical novel, Queen of the Court (2013) and her second novel, a mystery set at a girls’ boarding school in 1963, is in the publication process. Melanie is an honors graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in General and Comparative Literature. She loves writing for a living for many reasons, but mostly because she gets to stay home with her dog, Rocket.
Korama Danquah

Instructor

Korama Danquah started teaching workshops at Writopia Lab in 2015 and loves it! She is a playwright, screenwriter, poet, and fiction writer originally from Los Angeles, CA. After studying Theatre Arts at Brown University, she produced her first solo show, Mixtape for New Year's Eve (Secretly a Love Story) in Providence, RI. She has published multiple pieces in Coast Magazine, most recently a personal essay on cultural diversity in the ever-expanding industry of food delivery services. In 2019 she was a finalist for Skylight Theatre Company's Fresh Brews competition, and she is currently working on writing her second television pilot (while trying to sell the first). When she's not writing, she enjoys acting, karaoke, and going to the theatre!
Gina Stevensen

Instructor

Gina Stevensen is a playwright, performer and teaching artist based in Brooklyn. Her plays have been produced in New York City and regionally and include: Book of Esther (semi-finalist: 2016 Princess Grace Award, workshop production: Binghamton's KNOW Theater), The Time Crawlers Save the World (grand prize winner: Manhattan Repertory Theater's one-act competition, space grant recipient: Looking Glass Theater) and Troll Doll's Big Day (36-hour play festival: Urban Stages). Plays in development: Cruel Sister and When You're Young You Know You'll Live Forever at Columbia University. Gina is the artistic director of Park Slope Day Camp's Cirque d'Été summer circus camp, and is the writing coordinator at Tribeca Performing Arts Center's Writers in Performance Workshop. She has traveled three times to southern India to train in Mohiniyattam, a classical Indian dance-drama form. She was the choreographer for Narcissus: An Ancient Roman Pantomime, a new opera that aired on PBS in March of 2016. She received her BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch and is an MFA Playwriting candidate at Columbia University.
Chelsey Grasso

Instructor

Chelsey believes that storytelling is universal and at the heart of human connection, and she is thrilled to join the Writopia Lab community once again after time at the NYC site. Chelsey's fiction has been published or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Minnesota Review, Harvard Review Online, Carve Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. Her work has also been a finalist in multiple prose contests and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Along with writing and teaching, Chelsey loves attending writing workshops herself and has been awarded fellowships and grants from the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Conference, and the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she is currently completing her MFA.
Kukuwa Ashun

Instructor

Kukuwa Ashun is very excited to join Writopia Lab NYC! Born in Brooklyn, Kukuwa is currently a second-year MFA candidate at New York University pursuing her advanced degree in Creative Writing. An avid bibliophile, Kukuwa's fiction writing is informed by identity formation in coming-of-age Black women, environmental injustices in low-income communities, and social exclusion across race, gender, class, creed, and mobility. Before joining Writopia as an instructor, Kukuwa was an Editorial Intern for Writopia's online magazines, The (Parenthetical) and The Ellipsis..., in 2017. Since then, she has continued to work and intern with renowned nonprofit organizations including the I, Too, Arts Collective; One Story Inc.; and the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards. When Kukuwa isn't watching reruns of The Office, you can find her working on her debut collection of short stories somewhere in Brooklyn.
Alison Doherty

Instructor

Alison Doherty loves working with writers of all ages at Writopia Lab. She also teaches writing classes to freshman at The New School. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School in 2016 with a concentration in writing for children and teenagers. For undergrad, Alison studied English Literature at Smith College and The University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Before moving to New York, Alison worked as a classroom teacher and a curriculum consultant at Harvard EdLabs. Now, when she isn't teaching, Alison is working on her first YA novel and writing about books for Book Riot.
Samantha Stone

Instructor
Registration Support

Samantha Stone began with Writopia Lab as a JLA volunteer in 2016 and has taught creative writing and essay workshops since the summer of 2017. In the Fall of 2019 she joined the administrative team part-time, helping with registration, and is delighted to work more closely with the team. Samantha is a New York City based playwright and theatre artist, who focuses on creating theatre for social change in both national and international platforms. She received finalist status for the Leah Ryan Fund For Emerging Women Writers in 2019 and for the Ivoryton Playhouse’s POWER PASSION PROSE Women Playwrights’ Initiative for 2018. Her work has been produced at the Walkerspace at Soho Rep, Primary Stages, and as part of the 20th annual New York International Fringe Festival. In 2013, she earned a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from the George Washington University. She has an MFA from the Fordham/Primary Stages Playwriting program, which she earned in 2018, and currently teaches as an adjunct professor in Fordham’s English department.
Sarah Shatan-Pardo

Instructor

Sarah joined Writopia full time the summer of 2017 after spending the summers of 2015 and 2016 assistant teaching at our workshops and camps as an intern. She graduated from Haverford College with a BA in English in May, 2017. At Haverford, Sarah had a concentration in Creative Writing and spent her senior year writing a creative thesis. When she graduated, she was awarded the Terry M. Krieger ‘69 Memorial Prize for her achievements in writing. Sarah attended Writopia workshops as a high school student, so Writopia has been a part of her life for a long time. At Writopia, Sarah is an instructor and part-time registartion support. She is also an enthusiastic member of the team who brings fantasy and adventure to young writers through Worldbuilding, where the young writers create their own interactive worlds and stories. YA fantasy is Sarah’s genre of choice for both reading and writing, but nothing inspires her like the stories written by Writopia’s young writers.
Corey Haydu

Instructor

Corey Ann Haydu is thrilled to be teaching with Writopia! She is the author of the Young Adult novels OCD Love Story (Simon and Schuster 2013), Life By Committee (HarperCollins 2014), Making Pretty (HarperCollins 2015), and the middle grade novel, Rules For Stealing Stars (HarperCollins 2015). A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and The New School’s Writing for Children MFA program, Corey has been working in children’s publishing since 2009. In 2013, Corey was chosen as one of Publisher Weekly’s Flying Starts. Her books have been Junior Library Guild Selections, Indie Next Selections, and BCCB Blue Ribbon Selections.
Rachel Barclay Prabhu

Instructor

Rachel Kay Barclay Prabhu has been teaching with Writopia Lab since 2012 and has had the pleasure of working out of four Writopia Lab regions: Washington D.C., Manhattan, Brooklyn, and now the Bay Area. Rachel has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the Catholic University of America and a B.A. (magna cum laude) in English and Theater with a minor in Creative Writing from Arcadia University. Rachel was the recipient of the Kennedy Center’s JFK National Playwriting Award and a finalist for the National Partners of American Theatre National Playwriting Award. Her plays have been produced across the United States and beyond in cities such as London, New York, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. She is the creator, writer, and producer of the comedic web series, Human Telegraphs, and her work has been selected and premiered by film festivals, such as DC Shorts, at the National Constitution Center.
Ben Zuckert

Instructor

Ben is looking forward to being a part of the Writopia team! He's a Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker originally from Westchester, NY. His stories have appeared in The Westchester Review and The New York Times’ "Metropolitan Diary." His first feature film Larchmont screened at the Twin Cities Film Fest and Yonkers Film Festival in 2016. Ben is also a composer with music appearing on the PBS NewsHour. In 2019, he was recognized by the Scholastic Awards as an "outstanding educator whose dedication, commitment, and guidance are represented by student work selected for national honors." He is currently in post-production on his second film Noah Wise.
Alex Henderson

Instructor

Alex Henderson has enjoyed working with young Writopians since 2012. Originally from North Carolina, he has lived in Prague, CR, and Washington, DC, where he was awarded the Thesis Fiction Fellowship by the MFA program at George Mason University. He soon made the leap to New York City and Writopia's headquarters here, where you can now find him most days of the week (sometimes it's hard to get him to leave). Alex spends his free time riding the subway with a notebook balanced on his knees or figuring out how to re-arrange the bookshelves in his Brooklyn apartment. His fiction has appeared in Harper-Perennial's Fifty-Two Stories and Ekleksographia. He will listen to anyone tell a good story.
Brady Guy

Instructor

Brady couldn't be more excited to join the Writopia Lab team as an instructor. Brady graduated Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL, where he spent his time studying for classes in a hammock on the beach. After earning his BA in Creative Writing, Brady worked in podcasting for WBEZ, Chicago, and as an Associate Producer for the PleasureTown show, a fictional narrative podcast set in Old West Oklahoma. In Chicago, Brady studied comedy and won the Second City Original Sitcom competition and placed in a few others as well. Brady can't wait to use his experience to inspire Writopians.
Cassandra Rose

Instructor

Cassandra is tickled pink to be working with Writopia Lab in LA after starting with them in Chicago! Cassandra earned her BA in playwriting from Columbia College Chicago and did an MFA alternative program at Chicago Dramatists as a Tutterow Fellow. Recently, she completed Upright Citizens Brigade’s sketch writing program and UCLA’s Professional Program in Writing for Television. As a playwright, she’s had over 300 of her short plays performed across the country. Her longer plays include The Amen Trilogy, The Battle of Charlottesville, Billy to His Friends, and The Volunteer. Her work has been developed and produced by Broken Nose Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, Jackalope Theatre Company, The New Colony, and Stage Left Theatre. As a screenwriter, her first pilot, The Great Desire, made it to the second round of the 2020 Sundance Episodic Lab. She loves helping young writers with their scripts, their essays, and their creative writing in general.