Young writers find their voices

Some Valley Stream teens were among a group of area high school students who participated in the weeklong Alice Hoffman Young Writers Retreat at Adelphi University last week, where they learned that writing is about the writer as much as it is about the words they write.

“I learned to say a lot by saying a little,” said Hannielle Jean-Baptiste, 16, a student at North High School. “It’s condensing your words by painting a picture.”

Jean-Baptiste said she learned to not be afraid of being raw — “even explicit” — when expressing herself. The workshop’s visiting authors and the two professors who ran it also taught her the value of figurative language and focusing on the senses to convey an experience or feeling. She said she made friends at the workshop, which she described as very interactive, with role-playing and performance exercises.

Christina Rivera, 16, another North High School student, said she honed and polished her writing and also learned to be more outgoing. She said that being thrown into groups had an impact, forcing her to adapt quickly to work with people she didn’t know. She also enjoyed working with the graduate students who worked one-on-one with each teen, although she was intimidated beforehand. “They were warm and welcoming,” she said.

Jack Neary, 16, is a student at East Rockaway High School. He said that a visit from poet Rachel McKibbens was his favorite part of the workshop. She held a poetry slam, and Neary said he learned to not censor himself. He also learned that when writing about his own experiences, he should be less direct and use more metaphors, but to balance it all and not be too abstract or concrete. Above all, he learned to truly use the words he uses. “I learned to write more efficiently,” he said.

Maura Singleton, 16, a student at Mepham High School, said that she got better acquainted with her own skills. “Each day, we work in a different style,” she said. “It’s actually been the best week of my life.”

Singleton said that each author who visited had something different to offer, and they left her with the sense that writing should have no limitations. She said she learned to draw on her experiences. Kristen Corless, 16, of Bellmore, also from Mepham High School, echoed that.