Anticipation and inspiration filled the Mount Kisco Borders' café as five young writers, and their newly published teacher, presented polished stories at Writopia Lab's first Northern Westchester Open Mic Night on Saturday evening.

Writopia Lab is a New York City organization that creates a haven for young writers. Léna Roy, the person responsible for bringing Writopia to Northern Westchester, hosted the evening's events.

The excited speakers ranged from 8 to 17 years old. The crowd consisted of proud parents, supportive friends and random café visitors all thirsty for original fiction and non-fiction pieces. The topics of the stories ranged from innocent observations of snow to philosophical interpretation of the meaning of truth; poetry, short story and non-fiction essays were among the genres presented.

Open Mic Night was organized in order to give Writopia's students a chance to share their work with others. Roy's goal was to have her writers support each other and for them to have a fun time.

"What I really want to do is create a community of young writers. I think it's important to practice sharing work," she said. "We write and we want people to read our work, that's how we share ourselves."

Each author chose a different subject to write about, but all of the pieces reflected concerns about real life. Eight-year-old Finn Roy spoke of his feelings about moving to a new town, while sixth grader Kasia Malndowicz talked about hysterical brother/sister dynamics. Twelve-year-old Dylan Capshaw addressed making friends, sophomore Lindsay Gittelman paralleled the social scene of prison to that of high school and 17-year-old Rayna Gittelman debated the role of truth.

Even Roy, who concluded the evening by reading a segment from her novel Edges, uncovered tidbits about her personal life through her writing.

Roy hopes to hold Open Mic Nights once a month. To find out how to sign up for Writopia Lab or to participate in Open Mic Night contact her at lena.roy@writopialab.org.