On April 15th, 2026, 826NYC’s staff, board, and community of supporters gathered at the Ace Hotel Brooklyn for our seventh annual Write the Future Celebration. We celebrated 826NYC’s young authors alongside our honorees Daniel José Older, Linda Sue Park, and our first-ever Alumni Impact Award recipient, Anjali Misir. We were also able to highlight two Write After School students, Iman & Elektra, who presented our honorees’ awards, and had their original work read out to our guests. Our program was hosted by Lucas Hunt, who so truly embodied 826NYC’s mission to ensure our young authors have the resources they need to write their own paths forward.

Thank you so much to our honorees, student presenters, volunteers, staff and board of directors for making this night a roaring success! We’d also like to thank The Poetry Society of New York, 717 Photo Booth Co., and Inciardi Machines for making our cocktail hour so engaging and memorable, and to Kate Owen for her wonderful photography throughout the night.

You can take a look at some highlights from the evening below, and if you’d like high-quality downloads of photos from the evening, you can access them here.

We’d like to thank our sponsors Rich & Tara Kando, Christian Rongavilla, David Schnadig & Lori Roth, Ted Wolff & Anne Clarke Wolff, Penguin Random House, Buzz Education, The Wonderful Company, Brunswick, Morgan Stanley Polk Wealth Management, Alison Blood, Danielle Sinay & Ian Lloyd, Runner Music, UHY Prime, Kikkerland, HarperCollins Children’s Books, Covington & Burling, New Leaf Literary, Mandala Partners, Viral Nation, and WestExec Advisors 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 celebration in 2027!

Photos by Kate Owen and 717 Photo Booth Co.