“Making Pint Sized Authors in Los Angeles with 826LAâ€
By Liz Dwyer
REDU
November 7, 2010
“Former high school social studies teacher Joel Arquillos dedicated his life to writing, but unlike so many others in Los Angeles, he’s not pitching screenplays. The 38 year-old Executive Director of writing and tutoring non-profit 826LA wants to equip the next generation of L.A. kids with the writing chops they need to hit it big in Hollywood, or bring in the As at Harvard.”
“Judd Apatow has a funny way of raising money for 826LAâ€
By Deborah Vankin
L.A. Times
October 30, 2010
“Monty Python’s Eric Idle humored the crowd during the cocktail reception and repeatedly posed for pictures with adoring fans, murmuring one “thank you” after another in his British lilt.”
“Best One-Stop, Head-Scratching Shopping – 2010 – Echo Park Time Travel Martâ€
By Gendy Alimurung
L.A. Weekly
October 7, 2010
“Out of barbarian repellent again? Pick some up at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, Los Angeles’ very own convenience store lost in time.”
“Education with Imagination: 826LA innovates student servicesâ€
By Samantha Lim
La Gente
September 30, 2010
“If you’re a time traveller about to go gallivanting into the medieval times, you should stop by the Echo Park Time Travel Mart to pick up any last-minute chain-link armor or bottled humors.”
“Spellers ‘cheat’ way to raising $70,000â€
By Shelley Smith
ESPN
August 15, 2010
“In front of a packed auditorium at Lincoln Middle School on Saturday, dozens of “team members” and bona fide Hollywood stars, competed for the “big” dictionary, which was awarded to the winner of the spell-off at the end.”
“826LA: Tutoring Kids, Connecting the Community”
By Jenny Davis
Yoo-N-LA
August 11, 2010
“It is early morning in Los Angeles, and Joel Arquillos, the Executive Director of a super cool nonprofit tutoring-center for kids called 826LA, sits at a humble desk upstairs in his loft-office-space squeezed between stacks of paperwork, a laptop, two printers, and bookcases filled to the brim with children’s chap books. The adorable, yet profound and well-crafted books, are written by students and published in-house thanks to those two very standard looking but tireless printers.”
“826 Reinvents the Writing Center”
By Gavin Tachibana
National Writing Project
July 14, 2010
“826 centers across the country have created a different notion of what a writing center is, and partnerships between local Writing Project sites and chapters of 826 National are helping students become better writers, and for some, published authors.”
“Literary Los Angeles: 826LA”
By Summer Block
Pank
July 9, 2010
“There are eight 826 chapters around the country, and I sat down with L.A.’s Executive Director Joel Arquillos to talk about what makes the Los Angeles chapter unique.”
“Use Your Volunteer Time Wisely: Help Often, One Kid At A Time”
By Joel Arquillos
Huffington Post
October 20, 2009
“Can you imagine what it must be like for teachers in classes that large to give their students the individualized attention needed to help them develop their writing? I know firsthand what it can be like, since I was a teacher for eight years in San Francisco. In fact, that’s how I initially became involved with 826.”
“A Heartwarming Work of Serious Fun”
By Cathy Curtis
MSN.com City Guides
February 14, 2009
“In the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, home to urban creatives and immigrant Latino families, a storefront displaying a life-sized robot greeting a caveman could be mistaken for just another vintage clothing store.”
“Support Kids’ Creative Writing at 826LAâ€
By Jenny Williams
Wired
February 8, 2009
“Teaching and encouraging children to write well while using their imaginations is vital to the future quality of life for all.”
“Dear Sir Obama: Presidential Advice”
By Jory John
The New York Times
January 16, 2009
“For the (826) students, the election of Barack Obama had overturned their world… We decided to channel this energy into a writing assignment. We asked (them) to offer their thoughts, hopes and advice to Mr. Obama in handwritten letters (many of which came with drawings). Here is the result of their work.”
“‘Frankenstein’ writer back, sort of”
By Mindy Farabee
Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2008
“‘Frankenstein’ author Mary Shelley has made a rare Los Angeles appearance. On Sept. 26, some 150-odd years after her demise, she dropped by 826LA’s Time Travel Mart in Echo Park — that Sunset Boulevard purveyor of leg warmers, bottled ‘robot emotions’ and soon a fragrance timeline (a whiff of history from caveman to Studio 54) — as part of the Dead Authors series to report back from beyond.”
“Best Writer’s Block Party: 826LA East”
By Erica Zora Wrightson
LA Weekly
October 2, 2008
“The Echo Park Time Travel Mart on Sunset Boulevard is not what it seems. A sign across the otherwise unremarkable building reads: ‘Whenever You Are, We’re Already Then.'”
“Dave Eggers’ literacy efforts garner award”
By Carolyn Kellogg
Los Angeles Times
October 24, 2007
“‘I think Dave has been a model of somebody wise enough to do good, other-centered things with his good fortune,’ says author George Saunders, recipient of a 2006 MacArthur Fellowship. ‘And the 826 centers strike me as being so right-hearted and efficient, just in terms of teaching kids about the importance of the word in our culture.'”
“Their ‘final’ is a beginning for young authors”
By James Ricci
Los Angeles Times
August 19, 2007
“‘But when we hooked up with 826LA, they said, ‘Hey, if your students come up with a book, we’ll publish it for you,’ Cometa said.”
“Reading, writing, robots”
By Steffie Nelson
Los Angeles Times
December 31, 2007
“At the grand opening of the Echo Park Time Travel Mart on Dec. 15, the Robot Emotions were going like hot cakes (happiness and schadenfreude were the top sellers). The mystery product Chubble, on the other hand, available in more than 50 different varieties, wasn’t really moving. A worker dressed like a cowboy shrugged. ‘It’s really hot in the future.'”
“Conquest of the Word Masters”
By Diane Dunkelberger
Benefit Magazine
November/December 2006
“Barnett, who is 826 LA’s program director as well as one of the store’s product developers, seems unconcerned about whether kids will get the shampoo’s allusion to Rasputin, the late nineteenth century Russian mystic. These days, what is a more pressing concern for Barnett is getting the Time Travel Mart’s lease signed.”
“You missed ‘Explained’ for a movie?”
By James Verini
Los Angeles Times
June 17, 2006
“The show was the latest in “The World Explained,” a series being put on by the L.A. contingent of the magazine and publishing mini-empire McSweeney’s, to benefit their after-school tutoring facility, called 826.”
“Helping children get the picture”
By Cynthia Dea
Los Angeles Times
March 9, 2006
“AT first, 12-year-old Tomas Medina dreaded the assignment that introduced him to the world of photography. “I thought it would be boring. I thought it was going to be more work,” says Medina, a seventh-grader at Mark Twain Middle School in Venice. “I thought the pictures weren’t that interesting until I did the project. I learned that it’s hard to get a good picture, and it changed the way I looked at the world.”
“Jackson gets a lesson in teamwork”
By Kevin Ding
The Orange County Register
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Phil Jackson has one last thing from his unemployed life to which he must attend, a date he set six weeks ago and will now keep. . . He became mentor to a group of Animo Inglewood students, connecting with them through 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in Venice, and giving them the theme for a book toward which each student (some excerpted below) would contribute an essay.
“I Wonder Why All Kids Don’t Go to 826”
By Josh Kun
LA Weekly
June 3-9, 2005
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Adriel is announcing his new country in the bustling second-floor idea den that is 826LA, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center tucked into the back of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) on Venice Boulevard.
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“Class Action”
By Tami Mnoian
Flaunt Magazine
April 2005
Community is not dead in Los Angeles — it’s thriving. Case in point: the volunteer rush to help McSweeney’s publisher Dave Eggers renovate 826LA, the third installment of his creative writing think tank for kids. ¶ San Francisco, 2002: Eggers opens a tutoring center for kids that fulfills an overlooked need in America’s education system.
A Heartfelt Work of Staggering Good
By Lynell George
The Los Angeles Times
Monday, December 6, 2004
. . .Eggers has landed in L.A. for a couple of sure-to-be-sleep-deprived days. Not for a reading or a panel discussion but to shake a few trees. For matters important enough to don a dark blazer over faded jeans and transform himself from idiosyncratic author-editor to passionate pitchman.