Team
Young Poets Workshops | Team
Name:
Ivi
,
Fiona
,
Ela
,
Julia
,
Helen,
Jenny,
Ara,
Michelle,
Emily
Birthday:
Dec 29 2022
Signature:
© YPW Form 2025 /
❊
Leadership
Ivi Hua
Co-Founder & Co-President
Ivi Hua is an Asian-American writer, dreamer, & poet. A Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of Body, Dissected (kith books, 2024) and cofounder of Young Poets Workshops. Ivi believes in the initiation of change through language, & you can find her @livia.writes.stories on Instagram.
Favorite Poem: 'For M' by Mikko Harvey
Fiona Jin
Co-Founder & Co-President
Fiona Jin is a writer from the cornfields (Ames, IA). She was a 2024 YoungArts Winner with Distinction in Poetry and Winner in Spoken Word, a Chicago Youth Poet Laureate Finalist, and is grateful to have once received six books for free. She likes writing about parking lots, calculus, and memory.
Favorite Poet: Angie Sijun Lou
Executive Board
Ela Kini
Executive Board Member
Ela Kini is a student based in New York. She has been recognized by the Poetry Society of America, the New York Times, YoungArts, and other venues. Her work appears in PRISM International, The Penn Review, The Margins, and elsewhere. She reads for Palette Poetry.
Favorite Poets: Danez Smith, Tarik Dobbs, Sylvia Plath
Helen Gu
Executive Board Member
Helen Gu is a Chinese-American writer based in California who writes to integrate the external with the internal through the medium of language. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work appears in Narrative Magazine, The Inflectionist Review, and The Shore, among others. She is probably re-reading Pride and Prejudice, drinking a matcha latte, or saying something cryptically threatening.
Favorite Poets: Paige Lewis, Sylvia Plath, Ocean Vuong, Mary Ruefle, Victoria Chang
Favorite Poem: 'Lotus Flower Kingdom' by Stephanie Chang
Ara Djati
Executive Board Member
Ara Djati is a poet from Indonesia. Through her writing, she wants to reclaim and re-voice culture and identity. A Best of the Net Nominee, her works have been published in zine festivals, SAPIENS magazine, a United Nations Association anthology, and elsewhere. She enjoys finding new ways to describe the sun, moon, and stars.
Favorite poems: “Sajak Putih” by Chairil Anwar, “You Are Jeff” by Richard Siken
Emily Tong
Executive Board Member
Emily Tong is an Asian-American poet based in New Jersey. An alum of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, she has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, National Poetry Quarterly, Fugue, and the Poetry Society of Virginia. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Augur Magazine, Palette Poetry, Eunoia Review, and BRAWL. She enjoys drinking fruit tea and listening to The Crane Wives.
Favorite Poem: “summer, somewhere” by Danez Smith
Favorite Poets: Danez Smith, Franny Choi, Ada Limón, Richard Siken
Julia Liu
Executive Board Member
Julia Liu is a writer based in New England. An American Voices medalist and Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate runner-up, she has received recognition from the National YoungArts Foundation, Pulitzer Center, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and more. Her work appears in Gone Lawn, Gutter Mag, Eunoia Review, and Gigantic Sequins, among others. When not creating, she loves to whisk matcha and go on long walks.
Favorite Poet: Jericho Brown, Aria Aber, K-Ming Chang
Jenny Chu
Executive Board Member
Jenny Chu dreams and writes from Dallas, Texas. She has been nationally recognized by YoungArts, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Texas Cultural Trust, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Guernsey International Poetry Competition, and the National Scholastic Press Association, among other organizations. Her work appears in The Shore, Pithead Chapel, Gone Lawn, and BRAWL Lit, among others. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Rosetta Lit and ELLIE Magazine, as well as a reader for Okay Donkey. As you read this, she is probably talking to a friend, workshopping a Spotify playlist, munching on Swedish Fish, or going on an Internet deep dive.
Favorite Poem: “The Last Prom Queen in Antarctica” by Ocean Vuong
Favorite Poets: Hala Alyan, Chen Chen, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Jericho Brown
Michelle Li
Executive Board Member
Michelle Li has been nationally recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, Bennington Young Writers Awards, and Narrative Magazine. An alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop and the Adroit Summer Mentorship, her work is forthcoming or published in Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Penn Review, and Frontier Poetry. She plays violin and piano, loves Rachmaninoff, blackberries, and the rain.
Previous Staff
Jupiter Nesky
Ex-Co-Founder & Co-President
Jupiter Nesky (she/he) is a mad, queer poet and a freshman at Kenyon College. From Maryland, she is a co-founder of Young Poets Workshops and a graduate of the Iowa Young Writers Workshop.
Kyla Guimaraes
Executive Board Member
Kyla Guimaraes is a writer and student from New York City. Her work can be found in SUNHOUSE Literary, Dishsoap Quarterly, HAD, and elsewhere. Kyla is a co-managing editor at Eucalyptus Lit and poetry reader at Okay Donkey. She likes puns and the rain.
Jona Liu
Ex- Graphic Designer
Jona Liu is a writer from Massachusetts and the former Graphic Design Intern at Young Poets Workshops. You can find them @cyoxyx on twitter/X or wherever the best strawberries grow.
Favorite Poem: 'Faithful & Virtuous Night' by Louise Gluck
