Youth

Marjan Naderi, DC’s youth poet laureate in 2020, had long worried that poetry was dying. After years of expressing herself through poems, winning slam poetry contests, and even publishing her own book, Naderi wondered whether her craft was…

As the nation grappled repeatedly with the issue of police brutality, 10 teenage girls participating in a Ward 5 after-school program met weekly from 2015 to 2017 to collaborate on a novel, drawing from their own experiences and…

Zion Kelly stood in the same spot his twin brother, Zaire, had stood to receive his Right Direction Award one year earlier. One month after winning the award, Zaire Kelly was shot and killed only 300 feet from his home. Zion, who…