about

Dave Winslow, is CEO of EpikOne, a Web services company. Dave is responsible for the vision of the company including marketing, innovation and leadership. EpikOne offers Conversion Consulting, Online Marketing Training, and Google Support and Software Solutions. EpikOne is a Google Analytics and Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant, Google Enterprise Professional and an AdWords Qualified Company. EpikOne serves a diverse mix of clients around the world ranging from Fortune 500 organizations to e-commerce growth companies. Dave has been active in the online marketing industry for over a decade specializing in the areas of online business consulting, search marketing, testing and optimization, and web analytics. As an original partner of Urchin Software which is now better known as Google Analytics, Dave has worked with the web analytics software for over 7 years.

Dana vanderHeyden, a native of Prague, Czech Republic, lived in New Jersey after her family immigrated to the United States. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Rochester (NY), with a B. A. in French literature, as well as a diploma from the Sorbonne (Paris, France). Her M. A. in French is from Rutgers University (NJ) where she was a Teaching Assistant. Dana began her career in higher education at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, where she spent eighteen years both as Assistant Professor of French as well as Director of Academic Advising and, subsequently, as Director of Admissions. After relocating to the Hudson Valley in New York, she became associated with Duchess Community College for nine years, where she held the position of Assistant Registrar and served as academic adviser to adult students. In 1996, Dana became a resident of Vermont when her husband accepted the presidency at Saint Michael’s College.

Dr. Marc A. vanderHeyden, President Emeritus of Saint Michael’s College, was inaugurated as the 15th president on October 19, 1996, and retired in the summer of 2007. He was born in Ghent, Belgium, in 1938, and received a diploma in classical studies and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, followed by a certificate of theological studies, from Belgian institutions. He then entered Catholic University of America, where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in history. Dr. vanderHeyden is fluent in three languages and has a working knowledge of five more. He has been an active member of various professional, government, charitable, business, arts, health care and religious groups at the local, regional and national levels, and currently serves on the boards of the following organizations: the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill (ERVK), Vermont Ballet Theater and Vermont Gas Systems. Dr. vanderHeyden is a naturalized American citizen and is married to Dana Lim vanderHeyden.

Alysia Perkinson, Secretary, is a Second Vice President of Wealth Management and Financial Planning with over 15 years of investment experience. Prior to joining Smith Barney in 2001, she was a Vice President in the Fixed Income Group at Fleet Bank. She graduated from Union College with a degree in Economics and received her MBA from Boston University. With a focus on the needs of business owners, retirees and women, Alysia takes a strategic approach to helping individuals and corporate clients achieve their goals. In her spare time, she can be found with her husband, Ellery and son, Ethan, enjoying either the Green Mountains or Lake Champlain.

Bobbe Pennington was a registered nurse until she became a mother. With the help of her best friend, Scott, (her husband of the past 31 years), Bobbe raised four children and became extremely interested in education during their school years. She did graduate work at St. Michael's College to obtain her teaching license and has been teaching 5th grade at Rick Marcotte Central School in South Burlington for the past seven years. She also teaches 4th and 5th grade Wonderworks at her church every Sunday.
She loves to read, write, kayak, and garden. She loves the outdoors. And she loves kids. Bobbe is a leader of the Vermont chapter of the National Writing Project.

Rick Machanic helped found Tag New Media in 1996 and now heads the company. Tag New Media has been assisting businesses and organizations in finding their way online. From providing end-to-end custom e-commerce solutions to building scaleable database driven online publications, from consulting to design, Tag New Media has made it our mission to craft clarity from confusion while still managing to have some fun. Among its recent clients: Rossignol, Adirondack Museum, Columbia University, Downs Rachlin Martin, Fletcher Allen Healthcare, IDX, Hummel America, Montstream Studios, Museum of the City of New York and many others. Rick graduated from the University of Vermont where he loved to write.

Stephen Kiernan is an award-winning journalist who spent 14 years as a reporter, columnist and editor with The Burlington Free Press. He graduated from Middlebury College, and has masters degrees from the Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has taught at the University of Iowa, Middlebury College, and the New England Young Writers' Conference, and worked on the staff of the Breadloaf School of English and the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. He now writes for The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and several national magazines, and in 2006 St. Martin's Press in NY published his book Last Rights -- Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System. Stephen also plays the guitar, has released three CDs of solo instrumental pieces, and has composed for dance, theater and several television specials broadcast worldwide. He lives in Charlotte with his two sons.

Geoffrey Gevalt -- Editor, executive director. Geoff is founder and editor of the Young Writers Project. He was a journalist for 33 years at several daily newspapers in New England and Ohio, a weekly business newspaper in Boston, a financial magazine in New York City and the Associated Press in Baltimore. Most recently he was managing editor of The Burlington Free Press. Geoff has won numerous awards as a writer and editor and served for two years as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes in Beat Reporting. He has been on the executive boards of New England Newspaper Association (Awards Committee), New England Society of Newspaper Editors, New England AP Newspaper Association, Vermont Press Association and Leadership Champlain. Geoff conceived and began YWP in 2003 with the assistance of teachers from the Vermont chapter of the National Writing Project.

John Canning, Chairman, is president and founder of Physician's Computer Company, a 40-person service and software company that works with pediatric practices offices across the country. John's board experience includes chairing boards for the Vermont Youth Orchestra and the Gailer School, and co-founding a regional board for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. John lives across the street from the Burlington Airport with his foster son.

Lynne Bond is a longtime professor at UVM who specializes in healthy social & intellectual development in communities & families. She headed UVM’s community service learning project. She has involved students in community-based research both locally and internationally. She has created many associations between the academic world and communities, ranging from Belize, Central America to the Vermont Northeast Kingdom and Burlington North End. From 2000-2005 she conducted a course-based program that brought UVM students to Cuba, and brought Cuban faculty to UVM to share knowledge about community psychology (such programs are no longer permitted by the US government). Her research includes promoting people's ability to foster their own and others' healthy social and intellectual development, especially within communities and families. She focuses on parent-child and women's development and citizen community participation.

YWP Board of Directors

John Canning, Chairman, President and founder, Physician's Computer Company
Vice Chairman, Stephen Kiernan, award-winning journalist and author
Luanne Cantor, Treasurer, Chief Financial Officer, Greater Burlington YMCA
Geoffrey Gevalt, Executive Director and Editor, Young Writers Project

YWP visits schools and classrooms throughout the school year to talk about writing and engage students in writing. These can be general discussions about writing, or judging sessions, in which students help with the final selections of pieces to be published in the Newspaper Series.

YWP's Digital Writing Classrooms are fully supported, multimedia Web sites that allow teachers to use Web 2.0 tools in their teaching. These easy-to-use sites help students meet and surpass the goals for writing outlined in the Vermont Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities. They fully support the Vermont Department of Education’s goal of seamlessly integrating technology into the curriculum.

These classrooms provide students with an authentic writing experience – an audience. It is audience that gives writing purpose, yet students are often asked to write for an audience of one: a teacher who evaluates their work. With YWP Digital Writing Classrooms, students write for their classmates as well as their teacher, transforming the exercise of writing from one of judgment to one of expression and communication.

Rutland Herald article: Sound lessons: Students mix history, music in song about Marion Munger's life, May 28, 2009.

Geoff Gevalt's interview with Peter Mallory on WDEV radio, Monday Feb. 23, 2009. Ads have been edited out.

Times Argus article: Spaulding Students Show Off the Write Stuff." January 28, 2009.

YWP has partnered with dozens of community organizations over the years. Our primary partnership is with schools, both directly and indirectly, through weekly submissions to our Newspaper Series (300 schools have participated), our Digital Writing Classrooms and our student Web site – youngwritersproject.org. Other partners, past and present, include:

Burlington City Arts
Castleton State College
Children’s Literacy Foundation
First Night/Burlington
Lake Champlain Basin Authority

The Young Writers Project is a Vermont 501(c)3 nonprofit that engages students to write, helps them improve their writing skills and finds audiences for their work. It works with students in grades K-12 in Vermont and the greater Lebanon, N.H., area.

YWP was founded by Geoffrey Gevalt, who brings to the project 32 years of experience working in journalism. In 2003, while working as Managing Editor of the Burlington Free Press, he worked with the Vermont Chapter of the National Writing Project to create a weekly feature that offered tips on teaching writing and best student work. Within three years this feature had ballooned beyond his wildest expectations -- about 850 pieces of writing were submitted during the 2005/06 school year.

Hello, my name is Hannah Fraser or iWriteALot and this is just alittle About Me information.

My dream to become an author began in first or second grade. I had just started to read and at first I had difficulty doing it. But I tried and tried and then I had one of the highest reading level in my class!
When my second grade teacher said we'd be writing our own story, I thought this be a great opportunity to let my creativity run wild. I was reading books like Cam Jensen by David A. Adler and A-Z Mysteries by Ron Roy (who is on my All Time Hero's List) at the time and I loved fantasy and mysteries.
So "Dungeons and Dragons" was born. Not one of my best works, but it was a cute children's book. (I'm proud of it though, I used the word thwarted correctly! A big feat for a second grader who was still struggling with her times tables.)

I am who I am
About: of; concerning; in regard to,
Connected or associated with;
What am I associated with?
Of course,
I am of the living.
I am about life, compassion, and so many
Different concepts, they are infinite.

Life is about trying to crawl around in this narrow tunnel
And it’s up to you to carve your way through.
There’s only one way out, the end.
Yet, while traveling through,
Echoes upon echoes
Play amongst the
Walls.
It all comes in a not-so-delightful-but-surprising package.
Voices, sounds, emotions, intelligence,
Such and such are rather quite
Useful to utilize as a tool
To weave the path.
Wait. Where? Why? What? Who?
How’s it possible to realize one is wrong, and one is right?

‘Normal’ is about flowing with the current,
Appearing to be united as one,
But taught
Unity through diversity
Normal is forever changing
Never, ever staying on a certain course
Ideas aren’t formed because of the
‘Norm’

YWP numerical factoids (since October, 2006):

41,000 submissions and posts

An estimated 120 student judges

1,350 students have had their work published in five daily newspapers.

Students from 300 schools in Vermont (and part of New Hampshire) have participated.

140 pieces of student art published.

2,500 entries given feedback by 225 College Mentors since spring 2007.

An average of 520 visits to this site each day.

About 3,600 students are registered users of youngwritersproject.org ...

YWP Board of Directors