Writers in the Schools
at Rice Gallery

Nineteen students participating in Writers in the Schools (WITS) Summer Creative Writing Workshop met at Rice Gallery on June 22, 2010 to take inspiration from its current installation, Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly by Andrea Dezsö.

WITS, recently ranked the number one literary organization in the state by Texas Commission on the Arts, collaborated with the School Literacy and Culture Project (SLC) within the Rice University Center for Education to create the Summer Creative Writing Workshop. The program offered a supportive environment where students engaged in writing stories, poetry, essays, and plays, as well as simply reading for pleasure.

After a brief talk given at Rice Gallery by WITS writer Keya Mitra about layers of the imagination, the students plunged into the space of Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly, studying Andrea Dezsö’s colorful cast of characters, and picking and drawing their favorites out of the exhibition brochure. They then wrote poems in response to their exploration of the fantastical lunar landscape and its inhabitants.

At the conclusion of the session at Rice Gallery, each student was given the opportunity to present his or her writing to the rest of the group, and to receive constructive feedback and encouragement from Dr. Mitra and the student’s peers.

On Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 7:00 pm, they were given a second opportunity to present their poetry at the public reading series Words & Art, hosted at Rice Gallery and presented by the Rice University Center for Education. Participants visited Rice Gallery and wrote a poem, prose, or dialogue inspired by Andrea Dezsö’s Sometimes in My Dreams I Fly. They then presented their work at the Words & Art reading on July 28.