EmersonWRITES Elevates Young Voices with Pathway Program

Every Saturday morning, Aniaha Ortiz, MFA ’26 makes her way to the Walker Building to teach a poetry workshop for high school students as part of the EmersonWRITES program.
“I like the fact that I’m able to build relationships with the students and give them proper feedback that’s necessary for their poems,” said Ortiz.

EmersonWRITES features two free programs: a creative writing workshop and a lunch program. Classes are taught by current Emerson MFA and MA students in the Writing, Literature & Publishing Department who have undergone a rigorous teaching college composition course, as well as a competitive application process. The program is housed in Emerson’s Hub for Inclusive Visionary Engagement (HIVE) in the Social Justice Collaborative, in partnership with the Office of Student Success and Undergraduate Admission. HIVE provides programs and resources for creative expression and development.
The creative writing workshop is for greater Boston area students in grades 8-12 who meet every week in the fall to enhance their writing skills and contribute to the program’s annual anthology, SPINE. The lunch program focuses on college access, including a curriculum on applying to college, financial aid, and different paths to becoming a writer.

Writing, Literature & Publishing senior lecturer Mary Kovaleski Byrnes co-founded the program in 2010 with a goal to include more young writers in Boston into the Emerson community by removing the barrier of admission.
“Our hope was to create communities where [Emerson College] graduate students and young writers in their formative years of high school [and eighth grade] could come together and do mutual education,” Kovaleski Byrnes said. “The [graduate student] teachers are there to help students see what the life of a writer can be.”
The in-person workshops are taught by two teachers, while virtual classes, taught on Thursdays, each have one instructor.

Ortiz teaches an in-person poetry class with Aubrie Dickson, MFA ’25, both of whom have concentrations in poetry. This is Ortiz’s first year teaching in the EmersonWRITES program, and Dickson’s second.
Ortiz said that she and Dickson like to foster a relaxed environment for students; Ortiz ended a recent Saturday workshop by playing Wicked’s “Defying Gravity”.
“The students’ work inspires my own in a lot of ways,” Dickson said.
Parker-Vincent Alva, a junior at Boston Latin School and the 2024 Boston Youth Poet Laureate, is in his second year of the EmersonWRITES program.
“I wanted to spend more productive time writing,” Alva said. “I like the workshops, collaborating and working together with others. They don’t baby us.”
Photos by Zubin Stillings ’26
All students who apply to EmersonWRITES are admitted and are welcome to participate in the program as many times as they like during their high school career. If a student wishes to attend Emerson after completing the program and are admitted to the College, they receive a $30,000 annual merit scholarship, continued mentorship from the program’s teachers, and the opportunity to be an ambassador for future students.
Madison Lucchesi ’27, a current Journalism major, participated in EmersonWRITES during her sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school.
“I was writing bigger pieces about how the global context of the world influences my family and my daily life, and that kind of influenced the fact that I wanted to study journalism at Emerson,” Lucchesi said. “I was already comfortable here and I knew it had a program that I would enjoy.”
As an ambassador, Lucchesi comes in every Saturday to have lunch with students, talk about being at Emerson, and the college application process. She also helps with the open-mic Showcase at the end of the program.
“I think the showcase last year was really awesome,” Lucchesi said. “Being able to look at them and say, ‘You did so good,’ that made me feel good because my showcases were mainly on Zoom because of COVID, so being that person for other people was really awesome.”
On January 25, EmersonWRITES students celebrated the end of the program at the annual SPINE Showcase. Students, both in-person and via Zoom, shared excerpts of their pieces published in the 2024-2025 SPINE anthology. The pieces ranged across genres, including a fantasy about imperial resistance, spoken-word poetry, and a script about prank calling an insurance telemarketer.
Kovaleski Byrnes said she would like to expand EmersonWRITES outside of Boston, collaborate more with campus educators, and integrate within the Emerson community.
“I have lots of big blue sky dreams for this program,” Kovaleski Byrnes said. “My approach for this program has always been, let’s build the best program we can build.”
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