Writing Therapy

by Gina Catanzarite, Teen Writer! Director

Research shows that putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, has been linked to improved physical and emotional well-being for those who do it regularly.

Writing is a phenomenal tool to help us with our thinking, expression, and creativity.  But it also offers plenty of other benefits, too! So I’ve put together a list (along with links to back it up) of why you should make writing a regular part of your routine:

DID YOU KNOW?

• Writing has health benefits: Research reveals that writing about life goals helps to reduce anxiety and contributes to better overall physical and mental health. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167201277003 

• Writing helps us communicating complex ideas in other fields:  Scientific research has provided increasing evidence that correlates creativity with academic, social, and emotional intelligence. Writing can help the brain to develop the logical functions required for successful math and science learning. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/writing-executive-function-brain-research-judy-willis 

• Writing helps people handle hard times: Research reveals that expressive writing appeared to influence individuals' attitudes about negative events., such as coping with job loss. http://amj.aom.org/content/37/3/722.short 

• Writing helps people feel more positive: Research revealed people who reflected on the good things in their life once a week by writing them down were more positive and motivated about their current situations and their futures.  http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/gpr/9/2/111/

• Creative writing builds creative problem-solving skills! https://writingcenter.mcdaniel.edu/the-benefits-of-creative-writing/ 

• Writing encourages creativity, exploration, critical thinking, and self-understanding, all of which are essential skills for students. http://www.scilearn.com/blog/5-reasons-students-should-write-every-day 

• STORIES INSPIRE US!  Think of your favorite books. . . the fictional characters who seem so real that you think of them as your “friends”. . . of the lessons learned in a novel that changed the way you view the “real” world.  Someone has to write those stories that touch the human spirit, right?!?!

Teen Writer! is an exciting and active 4-day camp to help young writers build their skills and flex their creative muscles. To learn more about any of our other exciting, fun and unique Summer Camps for Teens, email us at luminari@luminari.org or call us at (412) 877 -1888.

Register today for a dynamic experience that will inspire the budding teen writer in your life.

***

Gina Catanzarite, owner/operator of Arania Productions, and an award-winning television producer, author, media consultant and teacher who has worked both nationally and locally in her fields since 1987.

Teen Writer! FAQs

By Gina Catanzarite, Teen Writer! Director

Q. Does my teen need to have experience as a fiction writer to take this camp?  

A.  Nope! Teen Writer! is uniquely designed to engage experienced writers and beginners who are simply interested in trying out a new creative writing format. Our writing activities offer several options for teens and can be adapted to suit their individual interests and needs as developing writers.

Q. Will this camp feel like “school”?

A.  Nope, again!  This is an intensive writing workshop and teens will spend very little time sitting at a desk listening to a lecture. Great writing starts with great details so our teens will spend a lot of time on walking tours of the area and on field trips to exciting locations as part of writing exercises intended to sharpen observation skills and descriptive writing skills.

Q.  Will this camp improve my child’s skills with academic writing, composition and research papers, or school essays?

A.  Teen Writer! does devote some time to writing with clarity, and proper grammar and punctuation are part of that. However, this camp focuses on fiction writing and the creative process for coming up with great story ideas, logical plotlines, characterization, dialogue, and descriptive narrative writing techniques. This is not an English composition camp and we do not recommend it for teens who are solely looking to improve their academic writing skills.

Q.  Will my child have to share his or her writing with other campers?

A.  Reading creative works aloud and getting feedback from others is part of the writing workshop process, however, we realize not every student feels comfortable sharing his or her work. Students are encouraged to let others read and comment on writing as part of our Peer Review activities, but no camper is required to share work or read it aloud.

Q.  Will my child leave camp with a complete, finished fiction work?

A.  It depends on the camper. Teen Writer! camp is designed to allow each camper to work at his or her own pace.  Some students do arrive at camp with a specific work-in-progress and in those instances we recommend that the writer uses that fiction as the basis for the writing exercises we do, revising and improving that specific work throughout camp. Other students feel more comfortable experimenting with different plots and characters throughout the week, improving certain creative skills but not necessarily completing a specific work of fiction during camp. All campers, however, will leave with a selection of plotlines for short and long fiction that they've developed throughout the week and they can continue to work on those projects at their own pace after camp concludes.

Q.  My child wrote a novel. Will he or she receive individualized feedback from the instructor on that project?

A.  Many campers arrive with fiction works-in-progress, as mentioned above. The instructor will provide feedback on portions of that project if excerpts are used as the basis for the writing exercises we do. However, due to time constraints, the instructor is not able to read complete novels and provide feedback on long works of fiction.

Q. What “take-away skills” will my child gain from this camp?

A.  Teen Writer! campers will leave with improved knowledge of creative writing techniques that can be applied to short and long works of fiction. This camp also includes components for career exploration and teens will learn about the publishing industry; how to submit fiction works for publication; and, they will learn about respected creative writing competitions for teens. Most of all, we want our campers to take away a sense of exhilaration and accomplishment as they gain confidence in their own abilities to explore and create dynamic fiction!

Does your middle or high school student love to write, does she/he write in his/her spare time, or goes above and beyond on writing assignments? If so, we encourage you to enroll your young writer in our TeenWriter! Fantastic Fiction summer camp. To learn more about any of our other exciting, fun and unique Summer Camps for Teens, visit luminari.org, email us at luminari@luminari.org or call us at (412) 877 -1888.

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy our newsletter. Receive each new post delivered right to your inbox, plus our can’t-miss news and program updates from Luminari. Sign up here.

***

Gina Catanzarite, owner/operator of Arania Productions, and an award-winning television producer, author, media consultant and teacher who has worked both nationally and locally in her fields since 1987.

Teen Writer: the world is our research lab!

By Gina Catanzarite, Teen Writer! Director

Teen Writers in Oakland. Photo credit Cooper Kusbit

I suppose kids who go to summer sleep-away camp – the kind with tents and hikes and campfires and cabin mates – come home exhausted, but in a good way. Fresh air, lively activity, a few new skills, a lot of new friends.

I like to think the kids who participate in Luminari’s Teen Writer! camp come home the same way. True, we don’t have the tents or the campfires but don’t think “writing camp” means kids spent days on end hunched over a desk in a dimly lit room, laboriously cranking out sentence after sentence.

Teen Writers in Oakland. Photo credit Cooper Kusbit

Enthralling fiction requires enthralling details and the only way to do that is to get away from that desk!

For writers, the world is our research lab.

Career counselor and author Barbara Sher said, “When you start using senses you've neglected, your reward is to see the world with completely fresh eyes.”

Teen Writers in Oakland. Photo credit Cooper Kusbit

That is the kind of camp our Teen Writers attended during the last week of June, traipsing around Oakland with tablets in hand, literally stopping to smell the flowers. . . and study the sculptures, and eavesdrop on the conversations, and observe the surroundings, and examine the exquisite little features and facets of the people and places around them. With a few tweaks, those details can artfully find their way into a piece of fiction and infuse it with authenticity.

Teen Writers in Oakland. Photo credit Cooper Kusbit

Don’t believe it?

We passed a preschool girl in a princess costume walking past the Carnegie Library with her mom. She was licking a lollipop and when she noticed us looking at her she beamed back, waved the lollipop in the air, and cried out, “It tastes blue!”

Teen Writers in Oakland. Photo credit Cooper Kusbit

I assure you, even the best writer in the world could not dream up such an exquisite line of dialogue.

We searched for inspiration for story ideas, too, on our daily walking tours of the city, asking the most useful question in a writer’s toolkit: What if. . .?

Teen Writers in Oakland. Photo credit Cooper Kusbit

What if. . . that elderly man doing Tai Chi in Schenley Park was really a spy?

What if. . . that sculpture on the lawn of Carnegie Mellon University was really a portal to another dimension?

What if. . . the woman in that 18^th century painting came to life and joined us for the day?

Teen Writers in Oakland. Photo credit Cooper Kusbit

And here’s another one: What if . . . we all lived our lives this way every day?

Maybe you aren’t a teen writer but you are a person with an imagination and you, like we did, would probably smile for an hour after a little girl dressed like a princess told you her lollipop tasted blue.

Teen Writers in Oakland. 

You owe it to yourself to get away from your desk and see the world through completely fresh eyes.

Fresh air, lively activity, a few new skills, a lot of new friends.

For a writer—for anyone – that’s a pretty good way to spend a summer day.

***

Gina Catanzarite, owner/operator of Arania Productions, and an award-winning television producer, author, media consultant and teacher who has worked both nationally and locally in her fields since 1987.

The True Adventures of a Volkswagen Beetle

CONGRATULATIONS to our May Share Your Story Winner: CHRISTY GUALTIERI!

THANK YOU to everyone who entered the Share Your Story: Writing Contest for May. We received many outstanding essays, short stories and memoirs and regret that there can be only one winner. However, our next contest begins June 1: so remember to Share Your Story for a chance to win!

The True Adventures of a Volkswagen Beetle

by Christy Gualtieri

It took me five tries to get my driver’s license.  It was mostly due to parallel parking - well, that and K-turns, those three-point turns you have to make to make a U-turn out of wherever you are.  It was pretty embarrassing, having to go through the test five times, but my brother took the cake for worst license test-taker in our family when he mixed up the gas and brake pedals and nearly hit a DMV worker who was walking into the building.

All of those tries aside, I have yet (thankfully) to be in any type of major car accident.  In the only one I’ve been in, I wasn’t driving, and it was just a minor fender bender.  I ended up with some really nasty whiplash and had to go to the Emergency Room.  The ER doctor was freaked out for a minute because I had these spots on my eyes, which is apparently a sign of a concussion, but it turns out my contact lenses were dirty.  I was sent home with a prescription for Motrin and an order to clean my contacts more carefully.

***

My very first car was a used red Beetle, from the Jack Daniels Volkswagen dealership (yep, that was the name) in Northern New Jersey.  It had 60,000 miles on it, a cassette tape deck, and a pair of red fuzzy dice to hang from the rearview mirror.  (I never hung the dice from the rearview mirror.)  The hubcaps would fall off all the time, and I wished so hard for so long that it had come with a CD player instead, but I loved it very, very much all the same.

Affixed to the back of the car was a sticker-magnet that read “I Love Jesus” in big bubble letters.  I had forgotten it was there, and I’d always be surprised when people would stop me and say “Me too!,” seemingly apropos of nothing.  My license plate holder proudly boasted the name of the dealership I got it from, and I forgot about that too.  Until a woman knocked on my window.

I was sitting in the parking lot of my university, looking through some notes after a class.  A furious rapping on my window drew my attention to a middle-aged woman I had never seen before.  She was saying something I couldn’t quite make out, and once my heart stopped pounding from being startled out of my mind, I rolled down the window to figure out what it was she’d been trying to say.

“Do you love Jesus?” she demanded.

I looked up at her, confusingly trying to place where I might have met her before.  I had nothing.

 “Um...yes?”

“Well,” she continued, her voice crisp,  “You need to make a decision.  Either Jesus or alcohol.  You cannot serve two masters.”

I was now thoroughly confused.  “What?”

“Jack Daniels,” she insisted.  “It says so right on your license plate holder.”

Jack…?  “Ohhhhh!” I told her.  “Jack Daniels was the name of the dealership.  It’s not, like, a hobby.  Certainly not a master.”

Her face unfolded in relief.  “Oh! Well! That’s good to hear! Just wanted to make sure! We Christians need to hold each other accountable, and…”  Her voice trailed off as she ran out of things to say and I just stared at her, trying to smile, and after a moment, I rolled the window back up.

***

When I was a graduate student, I once house-sat for one of my professors, who lived in Brooklyn.  I’d visit her brownstone every couple of days while she was on vacation to water her plants and bring in her mail, and sit in the quiet little room off the foyer and daydream about possibly owning a brownstone in Brooklyn one day.  There was so much to love about her neighborhood: living in New York City, the culture, the food, the people.  What there wasn’t to love about it was the parking.  In all of New York City there are about two parking lots for things, and they’re definitely not for brownstones.  Having to park on her street nearly gave me an anxiety-fueled stroke every time I went there.  For most of the visits I had managed to find decent enough parking, but on one of the last days, I was out of luck.  The only parking spot available required finesse, and seeing as how I wasn’t very comfortable with parallel parking to begin with (five tries!) , I would need help.  I reasoned that I would give it a try - I was driving a Beetle, after all, not a Ford F150 - but after three attempts, it wasn’t working out.  I was terrified of hitting the other cars, but God only knew where I’d have to park if I missed out on this spot.

As I sat in my car, fretting about what to do, a man walking down the street stopped and asked if I needed help.

“Yes, I do! Thanks!” I said, fully expecting him to stand at the back of my car and verbally guide me into the spot.  What I was not expecting was for him to open my car door and slide into the driver’s seat, shoving me into the passenger’s side.

This is carjacking.  Is this carjacking? What do I do? Am I going to be murdered right now? Is it a carjacking or kidnapping? Is carjacking like kidnapping a car?  My thoughts were frantic.  This was before the advent of everyone carrying a cell phone, so I would have no way to call for help. I tried to clear my head and think logically in this terribly frightening moment, but could only think of an old episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show I’d watched once, where a woman was kidnapped and thrown in her trunk.  She’d avoided certain death by kicking out one of the taillights and flagging down help with her foot.  But that was no help to me! What was I supposed to do from the passenger’s side?

I watched, dumbfounded, as the man buckled his (my!) seatbelt and promptly maneuvered my car into the impossibly tiny spot, hitting both the cars in front and behind us, chipping the paint on my bumper.

I could’ve done that! I angrily thought, and watched silently as the man cheerfully undid his seatbelt and slid out of the car.

“...Thanks,” I said weakly, watching him go, completely and utterly happy that the only thing he wanted to do was to park my car for me.

I’d like to say that was the last time that a stranger got into my car without asking, but the world can be a baffling place, and that is probably a story best told on another day. 

***

My Beetle died a watery death when I stalled out in the middle of the street due to flooding during a particularly nasty storm.  It died slowly, and stinking of gross New Jersey river-water, but it died shiny and clean from the rain.  I have a Jetta now, and it too is gross and stinky, but that is because I drive my two kids in it every day and there’s only so much cleaning a person can do after one of those kids spilled milk (milk!) under the backseat floor mat.

But it works, and like my first car, I love it very much. 

It has a CD player in it, too.

AUTHOR'S BIO
Christy Gualtieri is a freelance writer specializing in pop culture, religion, and motherhood. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and children. She blogs at asinglehour.wordpress.com, and tweets @agapeflower117.

***

SHARE YOUR STORY WRITING CONTEST

The winning writer receives a $50 gift card and reusable
tote bag sponsored by Pittsburgh Psychotherapy Associates

We are excited to team up with Pittsburgh Psychotherapy Associates to offer the Share Your Story Writing Contest to coincide with our bi-monthly publication – LUMOS! We challenge you to write and share stories that inspire, entertain, educate or inform.

Stories and topics for submissions can include (but are not limited to) current events, diplomacy, economics, politics, journalism, cooking, recipes with a great story to tell, creative writing, fiction, comics or environmental issues. This is your opportunity to let your writing skills shine. Share Your Story today!

Each period, a winner will be selected from all of the submissions eligible to receive a $50 Target gift card, sponsored by Pittsburgh Psych, and have his or her entry featured in LUMOS!

And to make sure you don’t miss future news, you can sign up for our newsletter by clicking here, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for conversations, updates and inspiration.

How to Write an Exceptional Essay for College Applications

How to Write an Exceptional Essay for College Applications

by Gina Catanzarite

As the end of another school year approaches, kids’ thoughts turn to a summer of sleeping in and lazy days spent lounging by a pool . . . unless you’re finishing your Junior year of high school, in which case your stress level is rising like mercury on a sunny day because (insert ominous music here) IT’S TIME TO THINK ABOUT APPLYING TO COLLEGES!!!

Without a doubt, one of the most stressful parts of the college admissions application is completing the essay. (More ominous music. . .) Essays have become extremely popular as an educational tool in our country, and young people frequently need to write them for applications for college or for scholarships and other competitions.

What do you think college admissions officers want to learn about you from that essay? Proper grammar? Proof that you can write a thesis statement? How intelligent you are?

Nope!

Take a look at some of these actual essay questions from college applications:

“Describe yourself as fully and accurately as possible in 140 characters.”

“Anna Quindlen says that she ‘majored in unafraid’ at Barnard. Tell us about a time when you majored in unafraid.”

Don DeLillo, Libra, said, “This is what history consists of. It’s the sum total of all the things they aren’t telling us.” What is history, who are “they,” and what aren’t they telling us?

The essay questions are prompts to help you reveal your personal philosophies and personality. They are meant to showcase your critical and your creative thinking skills, as well as your ability to make abstract connections. They require a deeply personal tone with a theme that unfolds largely through personal observations, recollections, and reflections on the writer’s life and experience.

Unfortunately, that rarely happens when so many people “help” the college applicant polish an essay before submitting it.

These people who try to help are well-intentioned to be sure, but what happens is that the student writes a very academic-sounding term paper—thesis, body, conclusion. Parents read it, guidance counselors read it, English teachers read it—and everyone makes comments and edits until it gets distilled, even duller and more generic than it was to begin with!

According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), their number one tip for writing effective college admissions essays is to be yourself. You can achieve that by following these guidelines, used in Luminari’s popular Teen Writer! camps:

TIPS TO WRITE BETTER COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAYS:

·       Relate it to a deeply personal and significant experience and the life lesson you learned.

·       Explore the value of the life lesson you learned. How did/will it change your future?

·       Use precise details and descriptive writing to paint a vivid picture in the readers’ mind.

·       Include research or data to support your opinions.

·       Consider using the “YOU” voice to engage the reader more personally in the essay, e.g. Everyone probably has a clear memory that involved the school bully, and I do, too. VS. You probably have a clear memory about the bully from your high school. So do I.

Most importantly, let the answer grow out of what you want to say, not what you think someone else may want to read. When you write from your soul, the essay will be meaningful, personal, and a reflection of someone with the maturity and self-awareness who is ready to embark on the next phase of life... as a successful college student!

Looking for more tips to create more great writing? Check out Luminari’s 2016 Teen Writer! Fantastic Fiction camp running from June 27 – 30. Learn more about Teen Writer! camp activities and scholarships we offer for reduced tuition!

AND. . . read even more unusual college essay questions here:

Buzzfeed | 22 of the most creative college essay questions

Washington Post | Unusual College Essay Questions

***

Gina Catanzarite, owner/operator of Arania Productions, and an award-winning television producer, author, media consultant and teacher who has worked both nationally and locally in her fields since 1987.

Gina is the instructor of Luminari’s Teen Writer! camps, being offered June 27 – 30, 2016, in Pittsburgh, PA.

Top 5 Reasons to be a Teen Writer!

Luminari's Teen Writer! camp 2016 begins June 27. So we're counting down the TOP 5 Reasons Your Teen should SIGN UP....

Dates: June 27 – June 30, 2016
Time: 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
Location: Rodef Shalom, 4905 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Duration: 4 days
Target Audience: Rising 8th-12th graders
Tuition: $395.00

Learn more or register today for one of our fun and unique summer camps for teens at www.luminari.org or call us at 412-877-1888.

The Right Thing: A Personal Essay

THANK YOU to everyone who entered the Share Your Story: Writing Contest in March. We received many outstanding essays, short stories and memoirs and regret that there can be only one winner. However, our next contest begins April 1: so remember to Share Your Story for a chance to win!

The Right Thing:  A Personal Essay
by Alex Barndollar




All I’d been doing was minding my own business, reading a book in Barnes & Noble when an older man sat down next to me. He was black, mid-sixties. Bundled up from the cold, he carried a cane in one hand. Reaching over to shake my hand, he introduced himself as Joe. A minute of silence had gone by when he started crying.

When someone starts crying, you’re going to ask if they’re all right. He launched into a tale of how his elderly mother had died the night before, and that he had been on his way to claim the body in West Virginia when his car had broken down outside the mall.

“I used up the money I had in my wallet getting the car towed to a garage, and my credit card is at home. All I need is some help.” The way he told his story was so genuine that I couldn’t help but feel bad. When he asked if I had any money on me, I gave him the twenty dollar bill I had in my wallet.

It would have been too easy to just direct him to mall security for help, wouldn’t it? But he was so genuine that I panicked.

And that’s when he asked me for a ride. Not immediately agreeing, I asked where he needed to go. He listed the name of the garage and it was familiar. Tears were still pouring down his face, and I knew that if I refused a ride I’d feel guilty about it for at least a year.

Next thing I knew, we were walking across the parking lot towards my car. Just to be safe, I pulled out my phone and dialed 911, ready to make a call should anything turn south.

I was an idiot for getting into this situation. The proper response would, again, have been to direct him to mall security for help. For all I knew, he could have had a gun under his coat. And the fact that I had the forethought to dial 911 should have been the kick in the ass I needed to realize I shouldn’t be doing this.

But it was just a ride to the garage, less than twenty minutes away. Right?

The trip to this garage soon took me down roads I’d never been on. All the while, he talked to me: asked where I went to school, what my major was. While the talk was friendly, my mind was going into overdrive. I could stop this and ask him to get out, but what if he had a weapon? And if he didn’t, would I just leave this old man out in the cold on a random street?

He was normal in appearance, with a friendly personality. But what if it was all an act? It would be easy to have me deliver him to a spot where his friends could be waiting to rob me, or worse. Would I be the cautionary tale they told to kids in elementary school about how talking to strangers can lead to horrible things?

What would my parents do if I didn’t come home that night? Would I see them again? What about my friends? Each of their faces flashed into my mind. I’ve always had a creative imagination, but in this case it wasn’t doing me any favors. My parents crying in a press conference flashed before my eyes with imaginary headlines, and the “doink doink” sound from (ital) Law & Order(end ital) kept going off in my head.

He thanked me as we reached a township 45 minutes away, not a place I would choose to visit. All he had to do was kill me when we got to our destination and he would have himself a new Honda Civic. Nobody would know to look for me there.

“Turn into that alley up there.” This was it. I was dead. “That alley between the buildings, with the DirecTV dish on the wall.” At this point, one hand had dug into my coat pocket and turned my phone on, ready to call the number. He reached into his coat as we pulled to a stop at a garage door. My heart was beating crazily, as if it knew that it was about to be silenced for good.

I was expecting a knife or a gun, but he pulled out a receipt and a pen and asked for my phone number. He promised he would pay me back, and got out of the car. Reaching back in, he shook my hand and told me he appreciated my help, and blessed me. As soon as the door shut, I locked it and backed out of that alley as fast as I could. Relief coursed through me, along with the urge to punch myself for being the world’s biggest idiot.

All I could do was drive. Twenty minutes afterward, my heart still racing, my phone rang. Pulling it out, I saw it was my best friend Peter. Pulling off to the side of the road, I answered it and immediately broke down in tears as I told him what had happened. He’d simply wanted to know if I wanted to order a pizza with him that night, so I’m sure he was confused by me bawling my eyes out when he asked if I wanted green peppers or not.

That night, Joe called me and intended to pay me back, asking if we could meet the next day. I refused, telling him not to worry and that I had to get back to school. He asked if I was sure, to which I said yes. Would he have paid me back? Maybe. Would he have asked for more money? Maybe. All in all, I was done with the whole thing.

AUTHOR'S BIO:

I'm a Corporate Communications major at Robert Morris University with an interest in writing and film. I hope to someday work in entertainment and successfully see one of my screenplays put to film.

***

SHARE YOUR STORY WRITING CONTEST

The winning writer receives a $50 gift card and reusable
tote bag sponsored by Pittsburgh Psychotherapy Associates

We are excited to team up with Pittsburgh Psychotherapy Associates to offer the Share Your Story Writing Contest to coincide with our bi-monthly publication – LUMOS! We challenge you to write and share stories that inspire, entertain, educate or inform.

Stories and topics for submissions can include (but are not limited to) current events, diplomacy, economics, politics, journalism, cooking, recipes with a great story to tell, creative writing, fiction, comics or environmental issues. This is your opportunity to let your writing skills shine. Share Your Story today!

Each period, a winner will be selected from all of the submissions eligible to receive a $50 Target gift card, sponsored by Pittsburgh Psych, and have his or her entry featured in LUMOS!

And to make sure you don’t miss future news, you can sign up for our newsletter by clicking here, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for conversations, updates and inspiration.

Every Good Story Needs a Strong Protagonist

   By Beth Dolinar

               Forgive this writing lapse, but let’s begin with a cliché: Gina Catanzarite has a personality as fiery as her red hair. Yes, she has red hair and blue eyes and if I’d written that hackneyed opening phrase in one of her university writing classes she would mark a big red slash through it. And then she would tell me it was a good try anyway.

Luminari Teen Writer! Camp
Director Gina Catanzarite

  And then she would encourage me to keep writing, because words are vibrant and beautiful and, at times, the only true things on this planet.

    If that seems overly dramatic, it’s because Gina finds the drama in her work. As the director of Luminari’s TeenWriter! Fantastic Fiction camp, she coaxes young writers to find the right words. Next summer, Gina will lead the camp for the seventh time, coaxing fresh perspectives from middle and high school students in her writing workshop. Her teaching departs from the typical classroom approach of research, syntax and grammar. She is selling the idea of a sentence as a living, breathing thing.

     “Emily Dickinson said, ‘I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine,’” Gina said, quoting the 19^th century poet.

      ‘When you write from the heart you can see the words shine,” Gina said, adding that it is through finding the gleam in a word that a writer finds his or her own, unique voice.

    Her love of language has filled her career. Her work as a writer and producer for both commercial and public television have earned her eight Emmy awards and countless other accolades. As a contributing producer for WQED-TV, she has tackled topics as widely varied as human trafficking, the gender pay gap and efforts to save Pennsylvania’s bats. She is the author of non-fiction books and has written for newspapers and magazines.

     A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Gina has taught journalism and broadcast courses at Robert Morris University and, currently, Point Park University. Her students are simultaneously frightened and awed by her dynamic and inspirational classroom style.

     “We had a hash tag of #wwgcd while we were there,” said Claire Gysegem, a student in Gina’s class at Point Park in 2012. “It meant, What would Gina Catanzarite do? She had a way of making an impression that would stick.”

    Gysegem, now a graduate student in public media at Ohio University, credits Gina with igniting her love of television production and writing. “She is upfront and honest and blunt, but probably the most encouraging person you’ll ever meet.”

     Gina is known for her intense, demanding teaching style—suffering no foolishness, laziness or phonies.

    “She expects you to be authentic and be yourself,” said Gysegem. “She taught us that your voice is your own, and when you write, you have to claim it as your own voice.”

     That conviction is evident in the way Gina leads Luminari’s Teen Writer! camp. Last summer, she took students on a field trip to Phipps Conservatory. It was the hottest week of July, and the students stood perspiring in the humid hothouse jungle.

   “Describe what it feels like!” Gina shouted. “If you’re uncomfortable because it’s hot, find the words to say it.”

     That direct and inspirational style was evident to Danny Allman, another Point Park student who served as Gina’s teaching assistant for the Luminari writing camp in 2009.

    “Those students learn from the best,” said Allman, now a news assignments editor at a TV station in Baltimore. “Gina puts so much energy and exuberance into making sure her students enjoy writing, and that they succeed.”

    Gina says enjoys teaching teenagers, because of how they view the world.

    “The kids that age believe they can do anything, “ she said. “There is a lot of life ahead of them, and they tend to be thrill seeking—they enjoy the exhilarating feeling of putting their thoughts down on paper.”

    Gina likens her role of teacher to that of a mother falcon.

    “She carries her babies up high and then throws them off,” she said. “They learn to fly in the free fall. The magic is in the free fall.” It’s a take on life with which she is well acquainted: Gina and her husband Howard Shapiro are the parents of twin teenage sons.

     Her home life feeds her personal writing. She has journaled every day since she was a child, a habit that has left her home littered with “stacks of notebooks everywhere.” They are the words of a woman whose mind travels many miles a minute. To converse with Gina is to be welcomed into a tornado of smart ideas.

     I chose to write this piece in the first person, because Gina is my friend. Our occasional coffee chats are always the liveliest and most inspirational few hours of whatever week I’m in. When Gina talks, you can see all the wheels turning, the eruption of ideas firing along the synapses, all the shining words rolling out. She is aware of how all that energy affects people. She is a lot.

    “My tombstone will read She Meant Well,” she said, laughing.

     This article about Gina began with a cliché. Do I dare insert another?

     What, I ask, is her philosophy of life and teaching?

    “Like me or dislike me; I’ll at least make enough of an impression that students will react to it, “ she says.

    “Do something to let people know you were here.”

Teen Writer Beware: How to Spot a Scam

by Gina Catanzarite

Thanks to the Internet, young writers have more access than ever before to find exciting writing competitions and scholarship opportunities. Now that school is back in sessions, you can be sure that many of them will be heavily promoted to teens seeking scholarships, prizes, and chances to be published.

Unfortunately, many disreputable organizations prey on eager teen writers-- promoting sham competitions with high entry fees and meaningless "publishing credits" as prizes.

Before entering any teen writing competition, follow these words of advice.  And, see our list below with links to competitions run by reputable organizations.  

Sources for Reputable Teen Writing Competitions

• ALWAYS review contest guidelines and promised prizes very carefully. Have a parent, guardian, or school guidance counselor review the competition rules with you if you are unsure if the contest is reputable.
• Reputable writing competitions rarely charge large entry fees.
  NEVER enter competitions that charge substantial fees.
• Beware of “anthology schemes.”
  In short, these schemes ask you to submit your work for a “competition” and “winners” will be “published” in an anthology. Sometimes they charge entry fees for each piece of writing you submit. If your work is “chosen” as a "winner," it will be “published” -- and then, of course, you can buy a copy of the anthology. This is a money-making scheme! Everyone who submits writing gets “chosen” to be in the anthology. The organizations that run these schemes make their money from submission fees and sale of the "winners" anthology.  These schemes are very common, and no industry professional sees them as credible samples of “published” work. Do not waste your money or your time on these anthology schemes.

Here is a partial list of reputable organizations:

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECONDARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS

http://www.principals.org/Content/158/2010_Natl_Ad_List_101210.pdf

Continually updated list of approved contests and scholarship opportunities for young people. Almost all require an essay of some kind.

SCHOLASTIC, INC. ALLIANCE FOR YOUNG ARTISTS AND WRITERS AWARD

http://www.scholastic.com/artandwritingawards/enter.htm

This is the SuperBowl of student writing competitions – and you can choose your preferred format, from poetry to fiction to short story. It also has categories for visual arts awards. This is an excellent and respected competition to enter.

SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY CONTEST    http://www.spj.org/a-hs.asp

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF PRESS WOMEN

http://www.nfpw.org/competitions.htm#highschoolcommunicationscompetition

NATIONAL SCHOLASTIC PRESS ASSOCIATION

http://www.studentpress.org/nspa/contests.html

National Pacemaker Awards are awards for excellence in American student journalism, given annually since 1927. The awards are generally considered to be the highest national honors in their field, and are unofficially known as the “Pulitzer Prizes” of student journalism.

Poetry Out Loud competition – National student recitation competition

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/

RTNDF -- High School Broadcast Journalism Project

http://www.hsbj.org/Announcements/5freedoms/

Journalism Education Association -- Aspiring Young Journalist Award

http://www.jea.org/awards/aspiring.html

Voice of Democracy essay contest

http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=cmty.leveld&did=150