It’s 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday. Most of campus is asleep, but UCLA professor and founder of the nonprofit Access Books Rebecca Constantino is setting up a table outside Rolfe Hall to welcome students and writers for a full day of workshops.
Co-sponsored by the UCLA Writing Project, which works with K-12 teachers to teach writing, the Conference for Young Authors and Illustrators gave elementary and middle school kids the chance to spend the day at UCLA, attending classes with well known writers and illustrators.
The idea for Access Books was born in 1999, when Constantino said she happened to be at a library that was giving away extra books. She decided to donate them to an underserved school’s library that didn’t have the funding to buy new books.
The nonprofit is now hosting its fourth conference for young writers. Constantino said the goal was to get kids excited about writing and give them the confidence and tools to become better writers.
Students spent the day learning how to illustrate books and write stories and scripts with professionals including “Pendragon” series author D.J. MacHale, illustrator Kathryn Hewitt and “Inkheart” series author Cornelia Funke.
In one workshop, they wrote a song in under half an hour. In another, they charted ideas for their own video games.
Fourth-grader Jabe Johnson from Clinton elementary school said being forced to write without stopping dispelled her writer’s block.
“Sometimes you might be afraid to write, but if you don’t stop, the ideas will come to you,” Johnson said.
Vine Street Elementary fifth-grade teacher Andrea Aceves said she was amazed to see some of her quietest students volunteer to read their stories aloud at workshops.
“All my kids are English learners so they struggle with spelling, vocabulary and other technicalities and they get stuck and stop writing,” she said. “But here they were told to write without overthinking.”
One of the workshop leaders, writer and high school teacher Ky-Phong Tran, led a workshop called “Rap Lyrics and the Story of your Life,” in which students were asked to express their biographies through rap lyrics. He said creative writing brings both an academic and therapeutic benefit to students.
“Growing up in a rough neighborhood, kids can have post-traumatic stress disorder,” Tran said. “Writing is a way for them to express their feelings and open up to literature.”
Of the 220 students who attended the conference, 170 came from underserved schools in Compton, East Los Angeles, South Central, Downtown and Hollywood – schools where Access Books has been working to establish libraries and promote literacy.
“The best predictor of how well you read is the quality of your school library,” Constantino said. “And in the state of California, there’s no funding for school libraries.”
This is their first time collaborating with the UCLA Writing Project.
Director of the UCLA Writing Project Faye Peitzman said that although her involvement was mainly logistical, she hopes that she can collaborate with Access Books in the future.
She said that in addition to instilling a love for reading and writing, the conference gives students the opportunity to experience a college campus.
“It’s important for these kids to be here when they’re young – to see college as a familiar concept and not something out in the stratosphere,” Peitzman said.
The conference ended with a mini-concert by children’s musican Dan Crow who called up some of the students onstage to perform the song they had written in just 30 minutes.
Tran said he hoped the students left with a changed view of reading and writing.
“Change always starts with planting a seed,” Constantino said. “And what we want to do is plant the seed – that kids can be writers, that they’re smart and that there is something beyond high school.”