About Our Nonprofit Organization Capitol City Young Writers is a national 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to educating and inspiring young writers up to and including high school. Our goal is to educate today's youth on the art and craft of writing, so as to encourage their own love of writing. Students are exposed to fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir, screenplay, broadcast radio, songwriting, and many other forms of creative writing.
Verna Dreisbach is an author, educator and literary agent whose work has been featured in books, literary journals, magazines, and newspapers. Her Seal Press anthology Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horses in their Lives is due for publication in 2010. Verna represents both fiction and non-fiction authors through her agency, Dreisbach Literary Management.She travels throughout the U.S. and Canada to various writers’ conferences and has established numerous contacts in the publishing industry. Verna is the founder and president of Capitol City Young Writers and co-founder of The Writers Police Academy. She holds a BA degree in English with honors from Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society.She is currently finishing a MA degree in creative writing. Other interests include riding and training horses, playing with her dogs and teaching archery to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
Verna Dreisbach
Founder and President
Deborah LeBlanc is an award-winning author from Lafayette, Louisiana. She is the author of Family Inheritance, Grave Intent, A House Divided, and Morbid Curiosity. Her next book, Water Witch, is scheduled for release in December 2008. She takes her high passion for literacy and a powerful ability to motivate to high schools around the country. In 2004, Deborah created the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge which is an annual, national campaign designed to encourage young readers to continue reading and increase literacy throughout the United States. You can read more about Deborah at www.deborahleblanc.com and www.literacyinc.com.
Deborah LeBlanc Board Member
Bob Yehling is the author of seven books and owner of Word Journeys, Inc., since 1996 a full writing services provider to fiction and non-fiction authors and writers throughout the United States. After beginning his professional career at age 16 as a newspaper journalist, Bob went on to edit a variety of magazines for nearly 20 years, including American Idol Magazine and One Giant Leap for Mankind, NASA's official 25th anniversary commemorative publication of Apollo 11. He has taught writing workshops since 1999, has worked with many young writers, and has organized and taught summer library writing programs to children and teens in four states. He is the author of the award-winning Writes of Life: Using Personal Experiences in Everything You Write, and the forthcoming The Write Time: 366 Exercises to Fulfill Your Writing Life and The Voice. He is co-creator of The Write Time Teens 'N Twenties Writers Conference, which will feature periodic conferences around the country, beginning April 11 in Bloomington, IN. Bob is a high school track and cross-country coach. His hobbies include photography, organic gardening, wakeboarding, landscaping, playing music and competitive distance running. In 2009, he will compete in the Boston Marathon for the fourth time.
Bob Yehling Board Member
Patricia V. Davis has taught extensively in private and public high schools in the United States and in Greece. In 1995, in Athens, Greece, Patricia founded an education service, Serafim Books, named for “a good book is like a guardian angel.” Serafim Books gained international acclaim for its dedication to education and its philanthropic work with organizations such as Make-A-Wish Greece chapter, TESOL Greece and TESOL Macedonia Thrace. Patricia’s essays, opinion articles and celebrity interviews have appeared in various newspapers and magazines nationally and internationally. Patricia is also the editor-in-chief of Harlots' Sauce Radio, non-partisan e-magazine and podcast at www.harlotssauce.com. Patricia’s book,Harlot's Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece, is an award winning finalist in the 'Multi-Cultural, Nonfiction' Category of the National Best Book Awards 2008, sponsored by USABookNews.
Patricia V. Davis Board Member
Michele Scott is the author of Murder Uncorked, the Wine Lover's Mystery Series as well as the Horse Lover's Mystery Series published by Berkley Prime Crime (Penguin). Michele began writing at 9 years old as has never stopped. After twelve years of pursuing her passion, she signed her first book deal with Berkley. Her debut novel Murder Uncorked, nominated for a best first mystery award by Romantic Times BookClub, hit the Barnes Nobles mystery bestseller list and the Independent Mystery Bestseller list. Her third book in her equine series, Tacked To Death, will be released February 2008. Michele is currently under contract for eight books with Berkley. Michele has been featured in The Writer, Romantic Times, San Diego Magazine, and Touring Tasting. She graduated from The University of Southern California with a degree in communications where she studied journalism and hoped to be a reporter. Michele lives in San Diego, California, with her husband and three children!
Michele Scott Mentoring Coordinator
Kellie Conway is a senior at SacramentoStateUniversity, finishing her Bachelors degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She plans to continue school with a MA in Creative Writing. Kellie is an aspiring writer with a strong interest in going into the publishing field. Currently, she is an intern at Seal Press in Berkeley, a board member to the 2011 California Association of Teacher of English Conference (CATE), and a volunteer at the San Francisco Writers Conference. Kellie was previously a volunteer co-captain at the Maui Writers Conference with her family for 3 years. A piano teacher of fifteen students between the ages of 6 and 16, she brings her love of writing and all of the arts as well as her passion of teaching children and young adults. At a young age, Kellie fell in love with music, theater and musicals. She was an avid actress in Musical Theater throughout high school. She acted in Crazy For You, Footloose, Bye Bye Birdie and Cinderella. She helped backstage with BrightonBeach Memoirs, Noises Off and was stage manager for The Man Who Came to Dinner. Her other interests include her love of animals, reading any and all genres, playing softball, and playing her saxophone in the Sacramento Symphonic Winds.
Kellie Conway Secretary
Alexa Rivadeneira has been with Capitol City Young Writers as a youth advisory board member since its inception in 2007 and has now become a board member after graduating from high school in 2010. She has taken part in many CCYW programs including the Master Mentor Program, A Day in the Life of a New York Editor internship program and earned a Writer’s Digest Conference scholarship. Alexa is an avid writer having self-published her fourth YA novel, Confessions from the Heart of a Teenage Girl, at an early age of fourteen. She also took part in a teen author panel and for the Reading Specialists Council of Suffolk in January, 2010, and was invited to speak about her book and her writing at a school in Westchester, New York. Alexa has been working with published author Shirley Jump on her fifth manuscript, A Blessing in Disguise, as part of the CCYW Master Mentor Program. In the fall of 2010, Alexa will be attending the University of Delaware where she will major in sociology and minor in Spanish and journalism.
