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Writers Trust Launches Outreach Effort

by David Brensilver | Jan 12, 2012 3:59 pm

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The Connecticut Young Writers Trust recently received a $2,500 program-development grant from First Niagara Bank. The funds will be used for “pedagogical outreach,” the organization’s chairman and executive director, Ravi Shankar, said on Thursday.

Established in 1998, “the Connecticut Young Writers Trust exists to affirm the work of young poets and writers and to further literacy and creative writing in Connecticut,” according to its website.

The death in 2009 of longtime donor Jim Irwin left the organization without an annual $10,000 gift. Last year, an annual donation in the same amount from the Connecticut State University system dried up as a result of the economic downturn. Shankar, an associate professor of English at Central Connecticut State University and editor of Drunken Boat, said the state university system will continue to provide in-kind support services, particularly as it relates to the Connecticut Young Writers Trust’s annual creative-writing competition.

Through the competition, “the Trust ... has affirmed the work of about 7,000 young poets and writers while awarding more than $200,000 in cash prizes, as well as trips to Dublin” since its founding, the organization’s website indicates.

Shankar said the Connecticut Young Writers Trust is starting to “do a little more pedagogical outreach.” The project-development grant from First Niagara Bank will be used in that effort.

“We’re going to look particularly at low-income areas and schools” in designing an outreach program that will supplement the annual writing competition, he said. 

Whereas competition winners often come from schools that are able to invest in and foster young creative writers’ literary development, “we also want to spread the word about the organization, its mission, and the annual writing competition among student communities statewide, Shankar said.

Shankar said female students tend to win the competition each year, and that one of the organization’s goals, through outreach efforts, is to get more male writers involved.

As of this year, the Connecticut Young Writers Trust is “doing everything electronically,” Shankar said. Competition participants can now submit poetry online, which Shankar hopes will allow more schools to participate since they won’t have to spend money on photocopying and postage. “Doing everything electronically,” he said, will also make the competition easier to organize.

Submissions are now being accepted for the 2012 Connecticut Young Writers Trust competition. All Connecticut high-school students—including those who are home-schooled—are eligible to participate, though “they do have to be nominated by a teacher,” Shankar said. Submission guidelines are available here.

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