Want to share your poetry with New Orleans through the magic of pizza???
The Pizza Poetry Project celebrates National Poetry Month and the power of New Orleans youth voices by publishing poems on pizza boxes on Pizza Poetry Day – this year, on April 29th. The best poems from grade bands 1-3, 4-8, and 9-12th will be selected as Pizza Poet Laureates*. Students will receive a certificate and be celebrated at our Pizza Poetry Party!
To have your poem featured on a pizza box you must:
1. Be between the ages of 6 and 18.
2. Email your poem to pizzapoetry@826neworleans.org by 5pm March 31st. We accept poems typed in the body of the email, or attached as Word or Google docs. No PDFs please.
3. Include your Name, Age, and School. Please also include your poem’s title if there is one. Any poems without a title will be printed with “Untitled.”
4. Attach the consent to print form signed by you, or your parent if you are under 18 years old.
Questions? Email pizzapoetry@826neworleans.org
*Only students who attend Orleans Parish Public Schools are eligible to be selected as Poet Laureates.
We’re celebrating the release of seven books and hundreds of young authors!
Writing on The Wall | Something Inside Me | I Heard A Voice Echo |That’s When Time Froze | Don’t Open This Book Unless You Like Joy | Make Plain Paper Beautiful | Unicorns and the Forces of Evil Escape to New Orleans
The Broadside • 600 N. Broad • June 12, 2021 • 10 AM – 12 PM
You MUST reserve tickets to attend. The event is outside, and social distancing will be practiced. You can reserve tickets here.
Join us for our 3rd annual Word’oeuvres: a celebration of food & creativity.
Recently our students spent a delicious afternoon sampling a menu prepared especially for them.
Our friend Ian McNulty from The New Orleans Advocate talked to them about what it means to be a food writer and helped guide them as they crafted their spicy descriptions. Chef Stephen Stryjewski from the Link Stryjewski Foundation prepared and described the yummy bites for the students and their families.
Join us to celebrate the power of food and youth voice in New Orleans. The August 29th event will feature the same special menu and the students’ reviews of it published in the anthology If You See This, You’re Gonna Eat It. Eat, drink, and enjoy a panel discussion featuring Chef Stephen Stryjewski, Chef Donald Link, Ian McNulty, and the young authors of 826 New Orleans.
Along with the panel and student readings, your ticket includes small plates by Donald Link and Stephen Stryjewski, wine and beer. All proceeds go directly to funding our free youth writing programs.
We invite you to our inaugural Community HolidayMarket at 826 New Orleans!
Please join us on Saturday, December 8, 2018, from 12:00-5:00 for a holidaymarket in our youth writing center located at 1750 St. Bernard Avenue on the corner of N. Roman.
Featuring:
Local artists and makers offering unique gifts
Ornament-making activity and fundraiser from Whole Village Art Therapy
The grand opening of our Haunting Supply Co. storefront selling amazing student publications and unique gifts
Coffee and treats
Family fun
Plenty of cheer!
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Interested in selling at our market for a good cause?
We’re currently seeking participants to table and sell their wares!
Please e-mail Sarah Grainer at sarah@826neworleans.org if you’re interested in participating in our HolidayMarket, and include a link to your website and/or social media where you share your work.
Space is limited, so we look forward to hearing from you by November 25.
While we do not have a tabling fee for participating vendors like most markets, we do ask that vendors donate 8.26% of the day’s proceeds to 826 New Orleans.
Tickets are on sale now for our annual Halloween cocktail contest and dance party benefiting our free youth writing and publishing programs. You can get them here. Read on to see who you’ll get the chance to party with next Thursday, October 11.
From L to R: Justin Shiels, Megan Braden-Perry, Larry Morrow, Kimberly Patton-Bragg, Scott Hicks, Elizabeth Pearce, Paula Echevarria, Daniela Jagemann, T. Cole Newton
Hosts:
Our hosts are advocates for our students and their stories and will be leading the way in making A Dark and Stormy Night special. They will be judging our costume contest and choosing the best-presented cocktail.
Megan Braden-Perry
The author of Crescent City Snow: The Ultimate Guide to New Orleans Snowball Stands, Megan Braden-Perry is the world’s foremost authority on all things snowball. As a writer her byline has been in NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, Gambit, NY Daily News, ESSENCE, JEZEBEL, WhereTraveler and OffBeat. She is a long-time Big Class/826 New Orleans volunteer.
Justin Shiels
Justin Shiels received his BFA in Graphic Design from Loyola University New Orleans and his Masters in Arts Administration from the University of New Orleans. He has over 9 years of experience in communications, marketing, and graphic design. As the Creative Director at FSC Interactive, he is passionate about creating compelling strategies, design, and content. He was an illustration for the second ever Big Class project, and has been a supporter ever since.
Larry Morrow
A 27-year-old serial entrepreneur residing in New Orleans, Larry Morrow’s claim to fame is being an event curator – producing lavish, star-studded events hosted by celebrities like Diddy, Floyd Mayweather, Drake and more. Morrow is a mild-mannered businessman who has garnered substantial success in the entertainment industry which has allowed him to launch other ventures, such as Larry Morrow Properties, his critically-acclaimed self-help book, “All Bets On Me” and most recently, Morrow’s Restaurant in New Orleans.
Cocktail Judges:
Our panel of cocktail experts from across the city will be selecting the coveted best cocktail award.
Scott Hicks
Scott was the winner of the 2017 Dark and Stormy Night Cocktail competition. He relocated to New Orleans from South Florida a few years ago and joined the James Beard Award-winning staff of CureCo. (Cure, Cane and Table, and Cafe Henri), working under mentor Kirk Estopinal. Currently, he’s part of the staff at 21st Amendment La Louisiane, a highly regarded cocktail bar in the heart of the French Quarter and local cocktail dive Twelve Mile Limit.
Kimberly Patton-Bragg
A restaurant-industry veteran with twenty years of experience under her belt, Kimberly now proudly hangs her hat at Jeff Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29. Several publications have featured Kimberly’s original cocktails, including Imbibe, The New York Times, Nightclub & Bar, Saveur, and the Times-Picayune. Kimberly honed her skills at Danny Meyer’s Blue Smoke and Jazz Standard in New York City before relocating to New Orleans.
Elizabeth Pearce
Elizabeth Pearce, founder and owner of Drink & Learn, is a Louisiana native and drinks historian who tells the story of New Orleans through its iconic beverages. She is also the Education Specialist for the Sazerac Liquor Company’s historic brands and the Drinks Curator of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, where she was the founding Senior Curator prior to creating Drink & Learn. She is the author of Drink Dat New Orleans: A Guide to the Best Cocktail Bars, Neighborhood Pubs and All Night Dives, and a co-author of The French Quarter Drinking Companion, a guidebook to the many bars of the French Quarter.
Daniela Jagemann
As the Chief of Staff for Tales of the Cocktail Foundation, Daniela has applied her knowledge to the global non-profit organization that Educates, Advances, and Supports the global hospitality industry. Her most recent accomplishments within the Foundation include facilitating the inaugural Grants Program and establishing Beyond the Bar, an initiative aimed at addressing the industry’s complex issues.
T. Cole Newton
Cole’s Mid City cocktail dive Twelve Mile Limit in 2010 has received many honors including having been selected as one of the top ten bars in New Orleans by the Times-Picayune every year that list has been published and was named the best bar in New Orleans by The Manual in 2017. He has been a huge part of making A Dark and Stormy Night happen every year!
Paula Echevarria
Food is Paula’s passion, but cocktails are her mistress, and she has been extensively covering the subject as a freelance digital journalist and social media maven for the past 5 years in publications such as Edible and the Miami New Times. She’s back in her true love New Orleans after being away for ten years, and you can follow her food and tippling adventures at Very Local New Orleans.
And our evening’s DJ:
DJ Chinua
DJ Chinua is a soundweaver for Dopeciety, Saint Heron and more. He hosts a monthly astrological party at Cafe Istanbul called Ascendance.
Don’t miss out on this one-of-a-kind spooky cocktail party! Purchase your tickets today.
Grand Opening of The 826 New Orleans Youth Writing Center
August 26, 2018
12:00-5:00
1720 St. Bernard Ave. (corner of North Roman St, look for the 826 pencil sign)
Everyone welcome (especially youth ages 6-18)
Join 826 New Orleans for the Grand Opening of our Youth Writing Center!
Throughout the day our new center will be open for workshops, writing activities, art-making, shopping in our Haunting Supply Co., sign-up for our free writing programs, and much more.
We’ll be featuring guests like Paper Monuments and Whole Village Art Therapy, Inc., workshops led by acclaimed authors like Daniel José Older and Megan Braden-Perry, food from our neighbors at Vaucresson Sausage Company, and an open mic featuring authors from the day and throughout Big Class/826 New Orleans history!
Stay tuned for more guests and details to come.
Drop in, write with us, and celebrate the opening of this space of possibility for young writers.
October 5th was the fourth annual A Dark and Stormy Night—a literary Halloween party and spirited cocktail contest in support of Big Class’s free writing programs.
Spirited thanks to our generous sponsors and our thoughtful partners who made the evening such a spooky success!
You can view all the photos from our 2017 graveyard smash here.
In Big Class tradition, we celebrated National Poetry Month, youth voice, and the unifying power of pizza on April 21st, 2017.
Since 2014, the Pizza Poetry Project has celebrated National Poetry Month and the power of youth voice by publishing poems written by young New Orleanians ages 6-18. This year, Pizza Poetry Day was part of the first ever New Orleans Youth Poetry Festival (NOYPF). Big Class teamed with New Orleans Youth Open Mic (NOYOM) to host the inaugural event. NOYPF included readings and workshops for young poets.
Many of 2017’s pizza poems were written through Big Class’s Poets In Schools free workshops, where poets worked directly with students in classrooms. Some teachers led their own poetry lessons, and submitted poems online. In total, Big Class received over 550 entries from students across the city. A teen council selected 20 standout poems to become the 2017 Pizza Poet Laureates.
On Pizza Poetry Day, Big Class partnered with some of the best pizza joints in town to publish these amazing poems onto pizza boxes for delivery and pickup. Pizza eaters and poetry readers posted their poems on social media using #pizzapoetry17.
Huge thanks to our 2017 Pizza Partners: G’s Pizza, Garage Pizza, Mid City Pizza, Pizza Delicious, Reginelli’s, and Theo’s.
