Day Eight is pleased to open applications for our spring 2026 pre-professional writing program for DC-area middle and high school girls. The program is designed to provide a supportive, social and creative space for young female writers to create and grow. The “Write Now” program meets once a month on Sunday afternoons and the cost, including lunches and entrance tickets, is free.
Enrollment is competitive and limited to 15 participants. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. The first program date is Sunday February 1st, noon to 4:30pm.
Application page link: https://dayeight.org/spring-2026-women-and-girls-program-application/
The workshop leader for the spring 2026 sessions is Rebecca Bishophall. Rebecca Bishophall is the co-author of Breaking the Blank, published in 2023 by Day Eight. Rebecca has featured at Spit Dat open mic, Capitol Hill book fair, the Afrocentric Book Expo, and elsewhere, and works in member services for a non-profit organization. She graduated from Trinity University in 2006 with a major in Communications. At each session, Rebecca will be joined by a guest faculty member (bios below.)
Each monthly session begins with the group gathering and having lunch together, followed by shared participation in an arts experience. Rebecca Bishophall will then lead a writing workshop, following by independent writing time and then share back of writing. Participants will receive formal and informal mentorship from Rebecca and the guest faculty, and gain experience in editing, including providing and receiving feedback on writing. Select works by participants will be published in Day Eight’s literary magazine, the Mid-Atlantic Review, at the conclusion of the program. The fifth and culminating session Spring 2026 is a public reading by program participants and faculty.
Spring 2026 Sessions Outline
Session 1 – Sunday February 1st, 2026, Noon-4:30pm with Susan Mockler including visit to the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ Remix the Collection exhibit
Session 2 – Sunday, March 1st, 2026, Noon-4:30pm with Teniola Ayoola including visit to the National Museum of Asian Art’s Art of Knowing exhibit
Session 3 – Sunday, April 12, 2026, Noon-4:30pm with Teri Cross Davis including visit to the National Gallery of Art’s Dear America exhibit
Session 4- Sunday, May 3rd, 2026, Noon-4:30pm with Jessica Genia Simon including visit to the Capital Jewish Museum’s Blacklisted exhibit
Session 5 – May 17th, 2-4 pm Culminating reading with faculty and participants
Guest Faculty
Susan Bucci Mockler teaches writing at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Her poetry has appeared in a number of literary journals, including the Mid-Atlantic Review, Maryland Literary Review, peachvelvet, Maximum Tilt, Pilgrimage Press, Crab Orchard Review, Poet Lore, The Northern Virginia Review, Gargoyle, and more, as well as in several anthologies. Her full-length poetry collection, Covenant (With) was published by Kelsay books in 2022.
Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of A More Perfect Union (Mad Creek Books, 2021), winner of the Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, and Haint (Gival Press, 2016), winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She was a Cave Canem Fellow and currently works for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Teniola Ayoola is a journalist with a focus on the arts, particularly theater. A contributing writer for DC Theater Arts and MD Theatre Guide. Teniola has a Master’s degree in Management from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s in Journalism from The George Washington University, and a rich background in media, including experience at the BBC, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, and The White House Correspondents’ Association.
Jessica Genia Simon is the author of Built of All I Shape and Name (Kelsay Books, 2023.) Her poems have been published in the Atlanta Review, Super Stoked: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from the Capturing Fire Slam & Summit, the Mid-Atlantic Review, and more. She works in fundraising for a national gun violence prevention non-profit.