Growing as a young writer can be an isolating endeavor, especially when so many writing programs and workshops are out of reach due to cost or location. I spoke with Riya Cyriac, a young poet and community leader, in order to shed light on the issue and see how young writers are organizing to make change.
I was fascinated to learn more about The Young Writers Initiative and their programs, from beta reading to writing summer camps, and how they’re working to make these services accessible to any young writers regardless of background. Cyriac also shares her thoughts on forging a writing community in the midst of AI, distractions, and the pressure for success. For Cyriac, writing is a balancing act—both a form of connection and an art to hone on her own terms.
You serve as the founder and Executive Director of The Young Writers Initiative, an international organization connecting young writers with education, inspiration, and opportunities. What inspired you to start TYWI, and what was your strategy for launching TYWI as far as it’s come?
How many stories have gone untold and unwritten? How many brilliant writers have remained undiscovered due to a lack of resources or opportunities or confidence? How many promising writers never even got the chance to start?
We founded TYWI in 2019 with a key problem in mind: Writing opportunities for young writers are sparse, hyper-competitive, expensive, or limited to certain schools and countries. Writing can be a lonely art, and many young writers often give up their passion seeing it as too unfeasible, or not getting the support they need early enough. Many other hobbies and activities like athletics and fine arts get that level of support and mentorship growing up, but not creative writing. This is especially important in the age of AI, where letting an LLM write for you is not only the norm, but widely encouraged. Writing is now largely viewed as a burden to automate away, but with TYWI, we want to make it feel like a precious gift to nurture and grow.
As for our strategy, we were all still in high school when we founded it, and I say “we” very intentionally. While I may lead TYWI, it has reached the success you see today largely because of the many team members and volunteers that give their time, their brilliant ideas, and their heart to the cause. Back in 2020, we were all bored out of our minds, and we all cared about the mission. The mindset was, let’s do whatever people need and do it in the most ambitious way possible. Seven years later, we have less time and a bit more pragmatism, but still that same passion.
That resulted in us launching over a dozen programs, events like our 12-hour Writeathon, our 6-month summer camp, our podcast, and our literary journal, Juven Press. When COVID-19 ended, though, we put a lot of effort into our Chapters Program so that we could bring what we did with TYWI virtually to in-person.
After a brief hiatus to reset our priorities, we anchored on three programs to serve our community with: Chapters, Beta Reading, and Summer Programs. Over the past year, our beta reading program has provided feedback to over 80 young writers. We have 40+ chapters, and 100+ summer camp members this year, and we have been focused on growth before branching out to some other program. Now, we have some initiatives ongoing to bring back some of our beloved programs from the past and impact more young writers.
I especially love TYWI’s beta reading program, which provides volunteer positions for aspiring editors and connects them with young writers seeking free manuscript readings. What has been your experience leading this program?
Our beta reading program is my favorite as well! While publishing is so important, TYWI’s focus has always been on developing a young writer’s confidence and skills, and the best way to do that is to get constructive feedback. At the same time, there are many young people that aspire to work in publishing or as editors (or just love to read), and are looking for volunteer opportunities to get this experience. Beta reading is a good stepping stone into being an editor, as it doesn’t require the precision and expertise that editing demands, but allows volunteers to learn how to critique, praise, and suggest improvements to a manuscript. That is why we started our beta reading program, and it’s had such a positive reception on both sides.
The core of the beta reading program, which is led by our Beta Reading Directors, is community-driven. Writers and readers give feedback to each other, helping writers get those valuable insights for free. For our poets, this means getting feedback on their poetry collections or manuscripts. This is especially important with AI, where young writers with limited resources may turn to get feedback from AI models, which isn’t representative of the reception they would get with real readers or the publishing industry.
When we redesigned the beta reading program, we leaned into how we can make it sustainable for our core leadership team and volunteers while still providing value to young writers. With the current system, we think we’ve struck the right balance and are looking to scale our services to even more young writers! If you’re an emerging writer aged 13-28, submit your manuscript to our beta reading service and get some real human feedback.
We’re also opening up our Editing Program for shorter pieces (like 3-5 poems, short stories, etc) soon, so if you’re interested in volunteering or submitting, stay tuned!
TYWI runs a free or donation-based summer writing program. Given how many writing workshops are cost-prohibitive to young writers, how do you view the importance of increasing accessibility to such spaces, and what was your process in devising a curriculum?
Increasing accessibility to writing opportunities is central to TYWI’s mission. By making TYWI’s Summer Camp free and open to all across the world, we’ve met exceptionally passionate and talented writers from countries like India, Palestine, Philippines, Egypt, Ghana, and more. All of these writers, no matter where they are from or what opportunities they have, share their amazing stories, develop their writing abilities, and connect with a safe community. It’s a testament to how much we all really do have in common.
Many programs for young writers are either exclusively tied to a specific location, have a fee associated with them, or are highly competitive. There aren’t many options for any writer from any background. A $15 application fee seems small to an organization. But for a young writer applying to many, with barely any resources of their own, those $15 dollars can be what stands in between them and even shooting their shot. By making TYWI Summer Programs free and donation-based, we remove that barrier to entry entirely.
Curriculum development is left in the trusty hands of TYWI Camp Counselors and Workshop Coordinators, who think deeply about the specific needs of the campers or workshoppers that are in that cohort. TYWI Summer Camp is intentionally designed to encourage consistent writing practice, expose campers to new concepts and genres via writing exercises, and get them comfortable sharing their writing for feedback with others. Participants leave camp with writing friendships, a reinvigorated passion for writing, and peer feedback on many pieces. Sometimes, it even opens them up to a new type of writing they didn’t consider before. No matter what stage the participant is in, TYWI Summer Camp has a place for them.
You also served as a co-editor-in-chief for Juven, a themed youth literary magazine seeking the unknown, unheard, and meaningful. What was your approach to curating these issues, and has this influenced how you view your own work?
Juven is so dear to my heart, particularly because Juven was the first project TYWI ever did. We wanted to create a youth-only literary magazine before it was popular to do that, and we had 4 issues. We had a theme for every issue, such as “self-portrait” and “re/untold,” which were intentionally open so writers could explore its depths and edges and bring their own interpretations to the issue. We were looking for writing that felt fresh, that brought in new perspectives, and was boldly representative of the writer.
Some of my favorite pieces that linger with me from Juven include Children of War by Rebat Matin, Enter Sandman by Julie Larick, and Untitled Film by Joseph Griffen, though every piece in Juven truly has such a special place for me. Though Juven doesn’t continue to create issues, being able to publish such beautiful work from young writers was so fulfilling. Now, many of our authors have gone on to do amazing creative things, and we are grateful for our small role in their story.
The talent that exuded from those who submitted to Juven inspired me to reach deep into myself and try to pull out threads from me that are unknown, unheard, and meaningful. I started writing poetry seriously because of my engagement with the young writing community. Seeing so many young writers share their poetry in various literary journals, whether in Juven or not, inspired me to dabble in that world as well. As a result, I also have a couple of my poems published in magazines, which was great exposure.
As a young poet yourself, what is your philosophy on how engaging with a writing community impacts your practice, and is there anything you would recommend to others looking to get involved?
Many popular hobbies and activities are naturally inclined towards a group orientation. You need a team to play football. You need multiple players to make a band. Writing is unlike that. You’re often writing in the solace of your own home. Maybe you’ll venture out to a cafe, but a good writing session demands your full attention. A writer spends a great deal of their time wrestling with themselves and foraging around in their own brain trying to pull out the right words. When you’re young, it feels kind of crazy doing this instead of going out and watching a movie with your friends or participating in a hobby that’s easy to do in a social setting. You’re investing so much time into a piece that you are uncertain will ever see the light of day, and it can feel awfully lonely.
This is why the writing community is so impactful to my practice. Even if all you’re doing is sitting beside another writer or on a Zoom call with them, there is solidarity in someone else doing the same crazy thing that you are. It is motivating. When writers feel less alone, they feel more motivated to pursue their passion even in rough days, and can get advice and guidance. I have a writing group in-person, which has really helped me have consistent writing practice every week, and they make for amazing friends as well.
As a writer, it’s very easy to feel like no one else around you is pursuing the same goal as you, but there are thousands of us with the same dreams, bursting at the seams with stories and poems to share. For young writers, I think this is especially true considering we’re constantly pulled towards one priority or the other.
Your article “the lost art of yearning” discusses longing in the age of optimization and instant gratification, supposing: “How lucky we are to experience the world in different colors. To fall and get back up again. To care so much about something that it consumes your entire being.” What is your perspective on how writers can hold a space for mindful creativity during these times?
Today, we are inundated by content and stimulation. Any writer should be conscious of the impact of getting influenced too much externally, as there is a high risk of losing your own voice in pursuit of emulating the success you’ve seen with others. The literary scene, whether you are young or not, is ripe with rejection and comparison. Too much of it, and you will begin to devalue your own unique voice and compare your work in a way that could be destructive to your long-term growth or self-worth as a writer. At a young, tender age, this is more true than ever.
I took a break from poetry (and writing) for a couple of years, uncertain about my talent and ability to make a meaningful contribution to the industry. Though I’d gotten a couple publications, I felt a deep lack of accomplishment. My love for writing was an unquenchable fire my whole life, but what burned bright burned out even faster. In retrospect, I was looking for instant gratification in a medium that would never provide me that. Writing is slow and requires patience. Success is hardly overnight, and opinions on your work will vary heavily per reader. No amount of publications would earn my own confidence in my words. I could not optimize myself to success with writing—no, it was a brutal and grueling process with no shortcuts and no other paths out of. Like many young writers deciding what to actually do with their lives, writing didn’t seem like a practical option. At the same time, my attempts to optimize my writing had inadvertently sucked the joy out of it. So, like many young writers who had a natural inclination to it, I abandoned it too early.
But writing has always been a part of who I am, and its absence left a notable hole in my life. Spontaneously, I picked up a writing course for fun in college. Low-stakes. Room to play, to reinvent, and to find writing again. I rediscovered my love for poetry and fiction in that safe space, and it reminded me just how important creating these spaces of play, experimentation, and growth is to sustain the fire kindling within young writers.
I think the best creativity comes when you release yourself from the expectations of the world, which is much easier said than done. When I am drafting, I don’t imagine a target reader nor a publisher. I am drafting first and foremost for myself. If I am not excited to write something, I can’t imagine a reader would be excited to read it. When I am most authentic and honest in my writing, readers feel seen and heard—not because the writer was trying to reconstruct their reflection perfectly, but instead opened up a mirror from one heart to another. Writing is just that–an exchange of two souls where both are trying to be seen.
In many ways, I am competing with myself, trying to recreate the magic that brought readers to some of my pieces but not others. I do feel that the weight of eyes on my work has impacted my ability to write authentically, since being selfish as a writer when your true goal is to connect with audiences feels at odds. In these moments, I retreat to projects whose only eyes are my own, and I think writers should feel more comfortable carving out moments where they can explore their creativity without the pressure of performance.
Thank you so much for your thoughts. Do you have any inspirations or future projects you’d like to share?
Thank you for having me! I’ve admittedly been very focused on growing TYWI at the moment, but I’m making sure to make steady progress on the novel that I am writing, which is a high fantasy about a woman who has invented a way to remove the consequences of using powers, and as a result, upended the world and brought forth problems only she can fix. I’m also writing pieces for my Substack, where I will post my poetry intermittently in between essays. TYWI has some exciting things coming in the next few months, so stay tuned for those as well.
If you’re looking to join a writing community, we have a couple of programs that make finding that easier for you.
- TYWI Chapters: Start a chapter of TYWI in a high school, university, or library. This is the best way to find people in your direct community that share a love for writing, supported with all the resources TYWI provides.
- TYWI Summer Programs: Every summer, we host a virtual summer camp and workshop that brings young and emerging writers together. Some amazing communities have formed from this, and it’s a perfect way to jump into a writing community.
- Volunteering: Our volunteers and team members get access to an internal TYWI community, where we provide feedback to each other, do writing challenges, and share book recommendations.
- Virtual Write-Ins: We’re hosting a series of virtual write-ins (prioritizing time zones favorable to the eastern hemisphere of the world) that writers can join. They’ll be able to write in solidarity with writers from around the world, no matter where they are.
- Online and In-Person Young Adult Groups: We are launching a sister-program to TYWI Chapters that is focused on the young adult, post-graduate scene. This will pair writers into virtual writing groups, or if they are interested in starting a hub in their city, in-person ones as well.
