WordPowered - formerly WriteBoston

On May 14th, Teens in Print celebrated the end of Cycle 2 with the Rising Voices Awards. Congratulations to Our Rising Voices Awards Winners! Thank you to our readers who voted in this cycle. Stay tuned for the next cycle in the winter!

From Tier 1: "How the Scroll is Shaping Your Life" by David Dang (https://bit.ly/4v6zAPe)

From Tier 2: "BIPOC and Q***r Artists: The Overlooked Pioneers of the Art World" by Aminata Mboum (https://bit.ly/49brZpZ)

From the Newsroom: "Texturism in the Black Community & the Need to Conform to White Beauty Standards" by Vivi Ndwiga (https://bit.ly/4e1ymxR)

170+ attendees at GBH Studios

$100K+ raised for WordPowered's programs: Teens in Print & Collaborative Coaching

Pros&Conversation 2026 has us seeing WordPowered’s circle grow! As the numbers come in, we had 170+ attendees and raised $100,000. Grateful it happened; it happened because of you.

A special thank you to our featured author, Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, for ensuring that we celebrated 100 years of Black History Month and honored the pantheon of everyday memory workers who did their part. Now, we unleash youth writers who see themselves in this tradition of storytelling, truth-telling.

"It makes me immensely grateful and joyful to see that my work is leaving a mark on history. And one thing that I've always realized, like writing and journalism, is that writing is one of the only ways that the past, future, and present can talk to one another. Writing defies all the laws of space and time. The Daily Table [grocery store in Mattapan] is no longer here, but its legacy still lives on through my article."
- Ketura Joseph, TiPTalk 2026

Thank you to our incredible host committee, our supporters, Board, staff, educators, and youth for filling GBH Studios. Thank you to our corporate sponsors and champions who stepped up for us. We joined forces with JustBookish and the Dorchester Reporter to enrich the literary/writerly lives of Boston's youth and strengthen community journalism.

In partnership with the Sarah-Ann Shaw family, we have established a youth journalism scholarship, and we awarded 5 scholarships through the Nancy Murphy Giving Fund. They are off to Bentley, Bowdoin, Harvard, Pomona, and Yale.

WordPowered's circle grows, and you are an integral part of it. Thank you!



(All photo credits to Theresa Johnson of Johnson Photography)

Being Youth-Focused During Backlash at WordPowered

by Abdi Mohamed Ali, Ed.D

I got word from Elvis, our Teens in Print Manager, that eight TiPsters have signed up to read I’ll Make Me A World: The 100 Year Journey Of Black History Month with me; they will prepare to interview Dr. Jarvis R. Givens at this year’s Pros&Conversation on May 7th. “Eight,” he said, “and I have not asked the Thursday group!”

The more TiPsters, the bigger the thinking. I am looking forward to giving them their own copies to highlight, annotate, and to put their training as journalists to work. Not all will be on stage with Givens, but all their questions, somehow, make it to the conversation.

This is my third time reading with our youth, leading up to our annual fundraiser: I found my way as an executive director to integrate a core identity I carry: the classroom teacher.

The classroom teacher Givens and I mutually admire is Dr. Carter G. Woodson; I tried to fashion a career in public education like Woodson’s, teaching and writing curriculum. Givens has studied him deeper and longer, and gone further to bring contemporary historians and educators to examine the meaning of his life and work.

Woodson is credited for establishing Negro History Week in February 1926, but its endurance despite waves of backlash, Givens contends, is due to everyday acts by “black memory workers,” educators and activists who committed to correcting racist lies, and whose perservation of facts and stories may inspire “those seeking to create and sustain meaningful lives steeped in a cultural legacy shaped by freedom dreams and a commitment to collective human flourishing.”

I am eager to find out which freedom dreams or everyday acts TiPsters will find reachable, and how Black History may feed their curiosity about the memory work they have inherited and must carry forward.

Pros&Conversation has been WordPowered’s open invitation to join writers, emerging and established, as they work out their subject matter and the significance of their craft. We want to see you at GBH Studios on May 7th. Now more than ever. Now more than ever, we must be youth-focused as Givens explains, “that such a focus has to do with more than simply offering young people greater access to the content of black history. It is essential that we support young people (and all learners, for that matter) in developing a critical understanding of what is at stake in the act of preserving critical perspectives on the past. It requires being more transparent about how power informs our social constructions of history and how historical consciousness informs our identities as individuals, as well as how our collective memories of the past shape our aspirations, both for our individual selves and the communities to which we belong.” Join Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, one of the most compelling memory workers of our time, in conversation with Teens in Print reporters on May 7th. Get your tickets here: https://bit.ly/4c3B8Di

We're thrilled to announce Boston Latin Academy English teacher, Boston Debate League Coach, and our Teacher Institute alumna, Mary Dibinga, will be one of the featured speakers at this year's Pros&Conversation!

Learn more and get tickets here: https://bit.ly/4c3B8Di