On April 23rd, 2025, 826NYC’s staff, board, and community of supporters gathered at the Ace Hotel Brooklyn for our sixth annual Write the Future Celebration. We celebrated 826NYC’s young authors alongside our honorees Mo Willems and R.J. Palacio. Teen Writers’ Collective members Samuel Wang and Shamsun Tiba shared their writing with our community and spoke about their experiences as 826NYC students.

We are deeply grateful to Samuel and Shamsun for sharing their words with our community and for making the night so special. It was also a blast to have comedian Jordan Carlos and writer Aminatou Sow host our program, and want to extend massive thanks to them!

We’d like to thank our sponsors Lionsgate, Nickelodeon, Penguin Random House, Runner Music, Sesac, Polk Wealth Management, Hyperion Books for Children, Brunswick Group, Union Square & Co., Kikkerland, Reed Smith LLP, GJR Literacy, Birch Path Literary, Covington & Burling LLP, Jill Furman Productions, and Weinberg Zareh Malkin Price LLP for supporting the evening and the work of 826NYC’s young writers. We look forward to seeing everyone again for our next Write The Future gala in 2026!

Photo by Aslan Chalom.