Dear WPWP Community,

As we move toward fall, I have been thinking a lot about acceptance.

Not acceptance as resignation, or as deciding that everything before us is right, fair, or unchangeable. I have been thinking instead about what it means to see clearly what is here, to name a circumstance, a transition, a challenge, even a joy for what it is, and to consider how we might move from that place of recognition.

So, a question I am carrying into this season and offering to you for self-inquiry and reflection is: What are you being asked to accept this season, and what might become possible once you do?

Lucille Clifton gives me another way to sit with that question in her poem, “the lesson of the falling leaves”:

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

There is something about the movement into fall that asks us to notice change happening around us: the shifting light, the cooling air, what remains, what releases, and what begins to make room for something else. I hope we can carry some of that noticing into our writing, teaching, and learning together.

September has already given us several opportunities to do just that. Thank you to everyone who joined us for The Window Keeper workshops, offered through our partnership with PA Humanities. I am especially grateful to WPWP Fellow Jill Sunday for the care, thought, and creativity she brought to co-designing and co-facilitating this space with us.

Thank you, too, to everyone who helped shape and participated in our recent WPWP Network Meeting. We are continuing to think about how this gathering can become a meaningful space for connection, exchange, writing, and collective learning across our network. We would love to see you at our next Network Meeting on February 3, 2027, at 5:00 p.m. Below, you will find several slides from our recent gathering to revisit or explore.

YWI Share Out  • Summer Institute Share Out  • Write Out Share Out

We have some exciting programs and opportunities coming up over the next several months. I hope you will find something that invites you in. As always, please feel free to share WPWP opportunities widely with educators, young people, colleagues, and communities who might want to join us.

As the season changes, may we keep making space to write, to notice, to gather, and perhaps even to practice a little acceptance together.

With care,

Khirsten

Director, Western Pennsylvania Writing Project

We opened our network meeting with the following prompts as an invitation for writing. We’re extended that invitation here. See where they might lead you.

Join WPWP for Write Out on October 17, 10 am–2 pm, at South Park. Explore nature, place, and community through outdoor writing.

How can spoken word poetry create new possibilities for writing, voice, and community in the ELA classroom?

Join the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP) and the Western PA Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE) for Write It. Speak It. Teach It., an engaging, teacher-focused evening of professional learning centered on bringing spoken word and slam poetry into the classroom.

Together, we’ll explore how teachers can use spoken word not simply as a performance genre, but as an invitation for students to experiment with language, develop their voices, write from experience, and share their work with authentic audiences.

We are excited to partner with the Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures 10 Evenings Series. To support our commitment to cultivating writing and writing community for our network, we invite you to join us for opportunities to engage with writers featured in the series. We have 5 tickets available for each evening. If you would like a ticket, please complete the following form. Tickets are reserved for WPWP fellows and the WPWP community. If you would like to purchase a ticket for a guest, please do so through the Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures site.

The Scholastic Writing Awards submission open October 1st. Please contact Leslie Wessner if you’d like more information about the Scholastic Writing Awards.

We have a 2026–2027 WPWP Annual WPWP Network Calendar. You can view, print, or download the calendar below. The digital version also includes hyperlinks to event information and interest forms as they become available. You can also subscribe to the WPWP Google Calendar here so that dates and updates are easy to keep with you throughout the year.

As always, thank you for taking the time to receive and review this newsletter. We are grateful to be in community with you. Feel free to share this information with others.

If you have any updates, ideas, and/or concerns, we’d like to hear from you. Email us at wpwp@pitt.edu.

If you have an event or opportunity to share with the WPWP community, let us know! We’d love to feature it in our next newsletter. 

We are continually enhancing our communication methods by addressing any gaps in contact information. Please complete the contact form below if you haven’t already. We encourage you to share it with others who might be interested in re/connecting with the WPWP network.