Speakeasy with Tim Whitaker of Mighty Writers

Tim Whitaker, the former editor-in-chief of Philadelphia Weekly, is now the Executive Director of Mighty Writers, a nonprofit based in South Philly that offers workshops and an afterschool program with the aim of improving writing skills in students between the ages of 5 and 17. Whitaker, who wrote droll political and social commentary for his Letters from the Editor at PW, is now sending out entertaining updates on Mighty Writers while surreptitiously seeking donations. We met up with Whitaker before a beef and beer at the Pen & Pencil Club, a fundraiser for the organization he started in association with Rachel Loeper, and we talked about what he’s learned about the world of writing and his favorite reads.

Your program has to teach many different styles of writing, no?
The biggest thing is to teach them to write with clarity. They can layer on the style later.

You've been a professional journalist for many years.  Have you ever tried your hand at fiction?
Over the years, I wrote a column for PW about a couple that was a serial. But I never published anything else.

What advice would you give to an aspiring journalist in this day and age?
Besides 'Get out of the business'? We have a lot of tutors who want to be writers and I tell them to give it up unless they absolutely can't picture doing anything else. If it would virtually kill you not to be a writer, then you'll probably make it out okay. It's bleak, though a lot of interesting things are bubbling up.

To read the rest of the interview, check out two.one.five magazine's website.

PictureShow feature on two.one.five

The two reviews below were part of two.one.five magazine's feature on Philadelphia Film Festival 2010.

11/04/08
Dir. Jeff Deutchman
Score: 3.4
Jeff Deutchman, Acquisitions Manager for IFC Films, got the idea for this documentary two weeks before the last presidential election: Why not mass Facebook blast everyone who might have access to a video camera and an interest in recording the events of and reactions to the day that many figured would become an important moment in American history? This listless documentary is the half-baked result. Deutchman's team captured people the world over talking about the change they felt would surely come with Obama's election. Admittedly a great concept, the film fails to capture the excitement and siginficance of that recent moment in U.S. history where liberals, democrats and humanitarians felt a glimmer of hope for their country. Self-professed curator Deutchman pieces together video bits but fails to make them feel cohesive -- the map-jumping seems to have little rhyme or reason. The pacing, too, makes little sense and the climax of the piece -- Obama's winning -- falls more than a tad flat. Instead of elation, the film leaves you feeling sad; for all the supposed change that people thought was on the way, the film's very nature mimics the lack of change in our political system since November 4, 2008.

OC87
Dir. Bud Clayman
Score: 6.9
Filmmaker Bud Clayman has suffered from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Major Depression, and Asperger's almost all of his life. As he was nearing college graduation, he also neared a breakdown that would prevent him from making movies for the next thirty years. With OC87, he reclaims a bit of his dream and in the process, creates, with the help of others, a documentary about his journey for recovery from these mental disorders. From coast to coast, the viewer follows Bud and his team as he retraces the steps in his life. Combining interviews with family members and doctors with old film clips and picture slideshows, Clayman creates an unique and touching story. Characteristic of someone with Asperger's, Clayman doesn't become outwardly emotional but he does seem to change throughout the course of the film, making it wholly captivating and touching. 

Dorm Corp.

With money tight and jobs scarce, students look to the Internet for ways to make some extra cash.

With the difficulty of finding part-time jobs and open work-study positions on campus, Temple students are turning to alternative money-making ventures, such as text-message Q-and-As, answering surveys, reading paid e-mails, playing games and selling products online.

But with many websites that offer ways to get rich quick, it can be difficult to know which are legitimate. Rachel Brown, the director of the Career Center, said she and her team of counselors can offer advice on how to recognize a scam.

“One of the things we advise students to watch out for is a pyramid scheme and what cost or fees are associated,” Brown said.

Sophomore psychology major Mike Althouse is one of the many students wary of being scammed.

“I know I did something like that before [take surveys online] and I don’t think I got money from it,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of money-making sites have catches, for example, following through with additional requests, et cetera.”

Read the rest of this 850-word feature for The Temple News here.

PRH Schoolyard: Mighty Writers

"Do you need to run around the block five times to get that energy out?" Rachel Loeper asks a young boy standing on the front step.

Loeper is the program director of Mighty Writers, a non-profit that aims to improve the writing skills of students ages 5 to 17. The young boy to whom she speaks is one of 50 students enrolled. Like most of his peers and Loeper herself, the young writer is a bundle of energy.

According to Loeper, she started holding meet and greets with people interested in starting a project like Dave Egger's 826 Valencia, a writing center that helps students ages 8-18 develop writing skills. In the meantime, Loeper quit her job in educational technology and took a position substitute teaching at Universal Institute Charter School in South Philadelphia.

That's when someone handed her Tim Whitaker's business card. Whitaker, a former editor of Philadelphia Weekly, was looking to start a similar project. The two met "and talked for about two weeks straight and eventually just kind of merged our forces," Loeper says, sitting at a table in the reception area at the Mighty Writers headquarters.

At the time, Loeper had between 50 and 100 volunteers signed on when Universal Institute, through its parent organization Universal Companies, offered Loeper the 1501 Christian Street storefront that was once the location for an "Obama for President" effort.

"Tim had funding for a year and a board of directors and a logo that I loved and we just took off running. So after meeting in April, we opened July 1st. We had 12 workshops last summer and then the after-school workshop started in the fall," Loeper says.

Mighty Writers is open Monday through Thursday from 3 to 6 pm for the after-school program, during which kids do homework before opening their red folders and working on their writing. On Sundays from 3 to 6 pm, Mighty Writers is open for tutoring and the community is welcome to walk in.

There are also workshops, hosted after 6 pm on weekdays and between 1 and 4 pm on Sundays. These workshops include "Graphic Memoirs," "Writing Like a Ninja" and "Girl Power Poetry."

Now, Loeper says the hope is to expand with a second location in West Philly. The group is always looking for people who want to join the list of 300 volunteers or who want to teach workshops to some talented students and community members.


This article appeared in Philadelphia RowHome Magazine's April/May/June 2010 issue (Vol. 8, Issue 18) in the PRH Schoolyard section.

Shop Class: Peace Images jewelry designer helping Haiti

Fashion columnist covers jewelry designer donating proceeds to Wyclef Jean’s Yéle Foundation.

Since the time my mom braided a hemp necklace for me and I learned to make bracelets out of gimp, or scoubidou, at Girl Scout camp, I have been a fan of handmade jewelry.

But Camille Peace’s designs, under her label Peace Images, are much more elegant than those ropey accessories of my past. And they better satisfy my philanthropic urges, as a portion of the designer’s proceeds, through the end of January, go to the Haiti relief efforts.

Peace is donating 25 percent of her profits from Peace Images sales on Etsy to Wyclef Jean’s Yéle Foundation. Peace, who is Haitian herself, felt a responsibility to help the victims of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck on Jan. 12 and centered on Port-au-Prince’s coast.

“They are my people,” Peace said in an e-mail. “How can I not help? And for the first time, I was in a position where I could help on a large scale.”

To read the rest of my first fashion column for The Temple News, please click here.

From soul to screen

Peter Jackson’s newest film is an emotionally charged endeavor that examines the soul after death.

The Lovely Bones is Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson’s favorite of his projects, if only because it is his most recently completed film.

“That’s like asking a mother which of your six children is your favorite,” Jackson said in a conference call in which The Temple News took part. “Honestly, you enjoy making the one that you’re working on at the time the most because it’s such an intense experience, making a film, you know.”

The Lovely Bones, set for release Jan. 15, 2010, is about how the Salmon family, living in rural Pennsylvania in the early 1970s, deals with the rape and murder of their 14-year-old daughter, Susie, while she watches from heaven, unable to intervene in events on earth or to bring her father closer to discovering the identity of her killer. The Lovely Bones is an adaption of Alice Sebold’s novel of the same name published in 2002.

To read the rest of this 900 word article for The Temple News, click here.

The Spectrum signs off

After four sold-out Pearl Jam shows the last week of October, the legendary building that served as the site of championships and concerts over the years, closed its doors.

Beer cost a dime at the concession stand.

A slice of pizza cost a quarter, a roast beef sandwich just 75 cents, and a 12-ounce soda – the largest size available – cost a quarter. These were just some of the items on the Wachovia Spectrum’s (then simply named the Spectrum) menu in September 1967.

The Spectrum, which opened Sep. 30, 1967 with the two-day Quaker City Jazz Festival, closed its doors Oct. 31 after a four-show concert series by Pearl Jam. The arena’s closing signals the end of an incredible era and marks, or at least Comcast-Spectacor and The Cordish Company would hope, the beginning of a new era.



To read the rest of this 900 word article for The Temple News, click here.

Where the filed things are

With the recent movie release of Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic, the Rosenbach Museum explores the beginnings of a phenomenon.


"They get increasingly angrier.”

That’s how Patrick Rodgers, the Traveling Exhibitions Coordinator of Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum & Library, describes each of Maurice Sendak’s 44 drafts of Where the Wild Things Are. Even diehard fans may not know this many drafts of the 10-sentence manuscript exist.

Advertised as an exhibition that will show visitors why the book is still popular nearly 50 years after its publication, the Rosenbach’s exhibition “And It’s Still Hot: Where the Wild Things Are” fails to do exactly that. Still, fans will find plenty of good reasons to visit the one-room showcase, which runs through Oct. 25...



Click here to read the rest of my first story for The Temple News! Click here to view and, should you wish, download a PDF version of this article.

Fame: A blessing and a curse

She was the hottest witch on TV. Now, Alyssa Milano is proving she really does lead a "Charmed" life.

Or does she?

Milano, in town to promote her clothing line TOUCH, stood next to NBC 10's Tim Furlong with a camera about 12 inches from her face. The interview with Furlong was the first of several press tapings and interviews during her crowded day. Scheduled for later were CBS, FOX, and ABC affiliates, CW57, Comcast SportsNet, then the Trentonian and South Philly Review.

Despite this packed schedule, Milano took the time to speak with this student journalist about living and working in the public eye. The pros and cons of which, she said, were obvious.

The pros: "I think it's an amazing livelihood," Milano said. "You get to have a public voice that's strong enough to affect and empower people around the world, and that's an awesome thing."

...

I wrote this story about the pros and cons of celebrity while a participant in the Philadelphia Daily News' Urban Journalism Workshop during the summer of 2008. The program resulted in the one-time newspaper Catch-22. Click on the image above to read the article or click here to see the full page in PDF.