Let’s give a warm welcome to our summer interns! These five students are part of our Teen Writers’ Collective during the year, and over six weeks, they’ll support our summer workshops, participate in professional development, and create captivating capstone projects. Check out a photo from when they visited SAGE, Advocacy for LGBTQ+ Elders, at the end of their first week, where they created and lead a writing workshop! Get to know each of them below:
Adalia Vargas
Adalia joined 826NYC during the school year of 2022-2023 and she is a rising junior in high school. She joined in hopes of improving her creative writing skills and she certainly did! She finds it less intimidating to draft up ideas she has for stories and poems because of 826’s insightful weekly workshops. At 826NYC, Adalia loved the poetry unit so much that it inspired her to write a collection of poems for her Legacy Project, the big final project in the Teen Writers’ Collective. Adalia has a primary interest in STEM, however writing has always been a way for her to voice her feelings and express herself creatively. After all, Adalia has written journal entries since she was 7 years old and she still has all the journals to prove it! She has aspirations in the medical field and hopes to study neuroscience in college. Adalia is passionate about the Marvel universe, matcha tea lattes, shopping for clothes, neuroscience, hanging out with friends, going to pretty libraries to study, and K-pop!
Aleyah Elder
Aleyah Elder is a rising Senior at Achievement First Brooklyn High School who is delighted to work her second summer internship at 826NYC. Aleyah first discovered 826NYC in September 2021 and really loved their goal and activities for students, so she joined Teen Writers’ Collective. Ever since Aleyah was in Elementary School her star subjects were reading and writing, and she hopes to someday inspire others with her creativity, love, and passion for reading and writing.
Jordan Mayers
Writing has been a constant in Jordan’s life since she was 10 years old. She has always loved watching the stories she crafts in her mind come to life on paper. Once she started high school, she found it difficult to have time to write her own stories as she got busier. Jordan joined 826NYC in the school year of 2021-2022 in hopes of having time to focus on writing. This program allowed her to experiment with new genres, focus on creating her own stories and find her writing style. Jordan recently graduated from high school and is attending Stonybrook University in Fall 2023. She aspires to be a bestselling author one day and have her books reach millions of readers worldwide.
Kayla Sabb
Kayla (she/ser) is in 11th grade. She goes to film school and has plans to become a director, writer, and actress. This will be her second year interning at summer camp as a member of the Teen Writers’ Collective. She has been in the Teen Writers’ Collective since 2021 and plans on being here until she graduates from high school. She loves this program and is so excited to be starting a new page in this summer internship!
Mayra Fernández
Mayra joined 826NYC around four years ago, looking for something to keep her busy after a long school day like her mother had told her. She found 826NYC and was very excited to give writing a second try after losing it for a while. During her time at 826NYC she discovered that she loves to write short stories about her life in different ways and come up with different outcomes and would write a few poems here and there about the things & people she truly loves so much about. She is still attending high school and her dream is to become a firefighter and something to do with being a writer as well. She also loves going on bike rides with friends/family or alone.
