Day Eight is pleased to open applications for our Fall 2024 pre-professional writing program for DC-area middle and high school girls, “Write Now”. The program is designed to provide a supportive, creative, space for young female writers to create and grow. “Write Now” meets twice weekly – on Sunday afternoons and Tuesday evenings. The cost of the program, including lunches and entrance tickets, is free thanks to generous foundation support.
Enrollment is competitive and limited to 15 participants. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. The first program date is Sunday September 29th, noon to 4:30pm.
Application Link: https://dayeight.org/fall-2024-women-and-girls-application/
The workshop leader for the Fall 2024 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.
Each weekend session begins with the group gathering and having lunch together, followed by shared participation in an arts experience (exhibition, movie, etc.) 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 a print edition of Day Eight’s literary magazine, the Mid-Atlantic Review, at the conclusion of the program. The second, weekday, session each week is a youth-led workshop. Each participant will be paired to deliver a writing workshop to the other participants under guidance of the program faculty.
Fall 2024 Sessions Outline
Week 1
Sunday September 29th, 2024, Noon-4:30pm with Pacyinz Lyfoung
Tuesday, October 1st, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 2
Sunday, October 6th, 2024, Noon-4:30pm with Holly Karapetkova
Wednesday, October 9th, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 3
Sunday, October 13th, 2024, Noon-4:30pm with Amuchechukwu Nwafor
Wednesday, October 16th, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 4
Sunday, October 20th, 2024, Noon-4:30pm with Haley Huchler
Thursday, October 24th, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 5
Sunday, October 27th, 2024, Noon-4:30pm
Wednesday, October 30th, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 6
Sunday, November 3rd, 2024, Noon-4:30pm with Jessica Simon
Wednesday, November 6th, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 7
Sunday, November 10th, 2024, Noon-4:30pm with Maritza Rivera
Wednesday, November 13th, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 8
Sunday, November 17th, 2024, Noon-4:30pm with Serena Agusto-Cox
Wednesday, November 20th, 7-8:30pm Youth led workshop session
Week 9
Sunday, November 24th 10am-4pm – Graduation workshops, reading and celebration – families and friends invited!
Faculty Bios
Pacyinz Lyfoung is a French-born and raised, Minnesota-grown, Hmong/Asian American woman poet, attorney and activist. She emerged as a poet among the Asian American Renaissance and the Hmong Literary Movement in MN. She started an Asian/Black solidarity art project, called Jade x Onyx. She is currently based in Washington-DC, and working on her poetry manuscript to be published by Sahtu Press, an independent Laotian American publisher.
Holly Karapetkova is Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington, Virginia, and recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Her poetry, prose, and translations have appeared widely in print and online. She is the author of two books of poetry, Towline, winner of the Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize from Cloudbank Books, and Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Prize for Poetry. She is a professor at Marymount University.
Amuchechukwu Nwafor is the 2024 DC Poet Project winner and author of the book, Salt Water Roots. A writer, educator, and teaching artist, ‘Amuche’ is a first-generation born Black American. Her poetry touches on the diaspora, mental health, and the female experience.
Haley Huchler is a D.C area writer covering culture, style, the arts, and literature. She has contributed to Washington Independent Review of Books, DC Theater Arts, and Northern Virginia Magazine. A graduate of James Madison University, she was a feature writer for James Madison University’s College of Integrated Science and Engineering, and the 2022-2023 editor in chief of Iris, a student-run literature and arts magazine. Haley was an arts writing fellow with Day Eight 2023-2024.
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, Slipform 2020 Anthology, Moment Magazine, Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Socially Engaged Literature, Super Stoked: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from the Capturing Fire Slam & Summit, the Mid-Atlantic Review, and more.
Maritza Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet and Army veteran and founder of the Mariposa Poetry Retreat and Casa Mariposa Press. She is the author of About You; A Mother’s War; Baker’s Dozen; and, Twenty-One: Blackjack Poems and co-editor of the afro latin anthology, Diaspora Cafe, D.C., published by Day Eight in 2022. Her work appears in magazines, anthologies, online publications, and a public arts project in Wheaton, MD.
Serena Agusto-Cox was one of the first featured poets of the DiVerse Gaithersburg reading series in Maryland. She runs the book review blog, Savvy Verse & Wit, and founded Poetic Book Tours to help poets market their books. Serena is an editor for Day Eight’s literary magazine, the Mid-Atlantic Review, and an organizer of the annual Gaithersburg Book Festival.