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Uptown Kids Writing Workshop Aiming to Create Young Hemingways

 Uptown Stories allows kids to do the kind of creative writing they often don't do in school.
Uptown Stories
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HUDSON HEIGHTS — At 5:30 on a recent Thursday evening, seven kids ages 10 to 15 are gathered in the community room of a local apartment building. It was Graydon Hanson’s turn on the hot seat, so he cleared his throat and began to read.

“March 29th, 1957: Never before had I seen as well a thought-out crime like this one,” Hanson, 11, paused for dramatic effect. “But they didn’t think about Detective Victor Snipes.”

His reading was the latest installment in a hard-boiled detective narrative that Hanson is working on for Uptown Stories, a workshop for kids that its founder launched after seeing a lack of creative writing in school.

Kate Reuther, a former middle school teacher, started Uptown Stories four years ago. She recently had the program classified as a nonprofit so she could reduce the cost of classes. Whereas a 10-week class used to cost $400, Reuther now charges students on a sliding scale based on financial need, with classes starting at $200.

Reuther said the nonprofit status has made the program more accessible.

“The student body is very different than what I had before,” she said of this fall’s sessions. “It’s much more diverse economically and racially, and I’m drawing from different schools than I was before.”

Reuther founded Uptown Stories after noticing the lack of creative writing in many middle school curriculums.

“As a fiction writer myself, I thought it was really important for kids to have that outlet,” she explained. 

Uptown Stories currently offers an adventure story class, two fiction courses and one advanced fiction class, all taught by Reuther or children’s book author Gene Hult.

During class, students do exercises to explore different elements of writing including story structure, character development and point of view. They take turns reading their work aloud and giving feedback, much like a traditional writers' workshop. 

Reuther said about half of her students are reluctant writers whose parents sign them up.

Catherine Freeland’s son Tate is one such participant. She signed Tate up for a class last year shortly after they moved to New York City from Denver.

“It was a huge shift,” Freeland said. “The academic rigor was much higher here than what we experienced in Colorado and Tate had always struggled with writing.”

After taking the adventure story class in the spring, Tate voluntarily returned for another session this fall.

“The fact that he would do a writing class for fun is amazing,” Freeland said. “I mean, it was torture for him to write a sentence, let alone a story.”

Reuther attributed the increased enthusiasm to kids being allowed to write about what interests them rather than having to work within strict parameters.

“They’ll keep asking me, ‘I can do whatever I want right?’” Reuther said. “It’s liberating for them to know, this isn’t for your parents or your teachers or even for me. It’s for you.”

For already-enthusiastic writers, the classes offer an opportunity to learn new techniques and to build a sense of community around writing.

“I learn new things like in medias res,” said Helina Franklin, 10, who is new to the program this session. “That’s when you start in the middle.”

She added that she likes how everyone in her class makes each other laugh.

“Even though we don’t really know each other that well, it feels like we do,” Helina said. 

When Hanson wrapped up his reading of Detective Snipes' latest adventure, his classmates had plenty of feedback.

“I like the part about how the bad guy had a metallic voice,” said Calum Wolfe-Thompson, 11.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be so funny,” noted Siena Stoller, 11. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”

The class was split on whether or not they liked the block of diary entries that opened the chapter. In the end, they suggested that Hanson break them up and sprinkle them throughout the chapter.

“Overall, you’ve found a deep vein of gold,” Reuther tells him. “Keep digging.”