CityLit Teens Wraps Up in White Marsh

Students from around Baltimore and Harford counties gathered at the Barnes & Noble store on the Avenue in White Marsh—not to buy books, but to read one they wrote.

The kids from Overlea, Dulaney, Randallstown and C. Milton Wright high schools were part of the spring session of the CityLit Teens program operated by the Baltimore-based CityLit Project.

Every Saturday morning for two months, the students met in CCBC Essex's Building L with program director and Overlea High School English teacher Robyn Barberry. Together they brainstormed, drafted, revised and shared their writing.

At the end of the course, the students published a book called Speak the Truth, Even if Your Voice Shakes under the collective name Writers of Mass Destruction.

The book's title came from an found image discovered by Overlea High's Eva Snell, one of the students working on the project—the kids decided they liked it so much that the image now appears on the book cover.

The students involved in writing and publishing the book include:

• Vanessa Barksdale (C. Milton Wright High School)
• Nakia Brown (former Overlea High School student, graduated from Randallstown High)
• Steven Calleja (Overlea High School)
• Andre DeNeal (Overlea High School)
• Mikayla Mislak (C. Milton Wright High School)
• Caroline Orth (Dulaney High School)
• Michelle Roig (C. Milton Wright High School)
• Eva Snell (former Overlea High School student)
• Hope Vergauwen (C. Milton Wright High School)
• Briana Williams (Overlea High School)

According to CityLit Project founder and executive director Gregg Wilhelm, the CityLit Teens program will start again in the fall.

Check out these photos and videos from the June 10 reading.