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Youth Writing Studio Opens in the Princeton Area to Prepare the Next Generation of Writers and Journalists

The City Kidz World Writing Studio, located in Skillman, will provide young people, ages 10 through 18, with the opportunity to be part of a youth writing community, develop the writing habit and receive professional feedback on their writing. The City Kidz World Writing Studio is holding an open house for the City Kidz World Writing Studio summer program on June 3 between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. at 416 Route 518 in Skillman. The grand opening of the program is June 7. The Writing Studio will coach young writers in short story development, poetry writing, novel development, journalism and even academic writing.

The founder of the City Kidz World Writing Studio, Melissa Edwards, an English and journalism professor at Middlesex County College, said, “This program is an extension of City Kidz World magazine – a magazine that is distributed locally. The magazine also has a website, www.citykidzworld.com. The magazine and the website attract both local and international readers and they both call for all types of writing in the form of academic contests and challenges.”

“Since City Kidz World magazine launched more than 2 years ago, it has received numerous submissions from young people in Princeton, West Windsor and Plainsboro, Hamilton, Skillman, Montgomery, Rocky Hill, Lawrenceville, Pennington, Hillsborough and the Hopewell area,” she said.  “It is time to offer young people in these areas more of an outlet for their creativity; one magazine is not enough.”

Edwards said the City Kidz World Writing Studio will serve young people by offering them an opportunity to regularly express themselves through writing and creativity with the added benefit of one-on-one attention and coaching in small groups. Individualized coaching is also available.  

“Young people need to have a space for creative writing and projects in their lives,” she said. “The studio is located in a beautiful building surrounded by a peaceful neighborhood that is just perfect for quiet contemplation and writing,” Edwards said.

“An added benefit to the program is that the City Kidz World Writing Studio will take advantage of online classroom technology in order to provide additional feedback to young writers,” Edwards said.

“During the regular academic year some students may find it difficult to make it out to the studio and may need to rely on the online classroom quite a bit. We are trying to make sure that we are there to mentor and support writing in any way possible,” Edwards  said.

 “I believe that it is important for young people to have the chance to practice what they love. Many times in school there is a great deal of emphasis placed on academic writing, which is extremely important. Sometimes there is not enough time to really give all students a chance to exercise their creativity through writing,” she said.

“All young people have stories inside.  Most schools cannot spend a great deal of time helping bring that out in all of the students. Sometimes the opportunity to express the creative spark is only offered to young people in special programs – gifted children,” she said.
Edwards said,   “All children need to have an outlet for their creativity. Most children will go to college and when a young person has the opportunity experience creativity and independence as a thinker and a writer it can really help prepare them for the top college environment.”

“The City Kidz World Writing Studio actually has a publishing component and will help young people develop and publish their poetry collections, their short story collections and their small scale newsletter and newspaper projects,” she said. “Some students will actually be able to submit work to our widely distributed City Kidz World magazine,” Edwards said.

For the summer program students can sign up for 2 or 3 sessions a week on Monday through Friday. Classes are scheduled for 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., but other classes may be scheduled for later times and during weekends if there is enough demand, Edwards said.
“We are happy that we are able to offer sessions that include 16 classes for an extremely low price,” Edwards said.

“Our local readers have been asking for this for more than a year and we are quite happy to finally be able to bring this writing studio to the community,” she said.

For more information about the program please go to www.citykidzworld.com/writingcoach.php .  Call 732-514--7373.