Welcome!

Building a Rainbow is a public youth memoir project with the Indiana Writers Center (IWC) that helps kids develop a lifelong love of writing.

The Building a Rainbow program is free to student participants and supports and improves the literacy and creative skills of students ages 6-18 in the city of Indianapolis. Working one-on-one, IWC instructors, college interns, and volunteers help the young writers get their words on the page and also encourage them to reflect upon the experiences they’ve written about, considering how what they’ve learned can make their dreams come true.

Funded by the Summer Youth Program Fund (SYPF), I Remember: Creative Writing by Indianapolis Youth is a collection of the stories and poems by the children attending our program at the St. Florian Youth Development Camp, Horizon’s at St. Richard’s School (HRES), and the Felege Hiywot Center. Reading them will take you from a chair in a beauty shop to a beach in Mexico to King’s Island. You’ll plunge downward in a rollercoaster, paddle a canoe up a creek, and join in a Juneteenth barbeque. You will hear stories of Black boy joy and Black girl magic. Above all, you’ll hear these students’ voices—glorious young voices, full of hope for the future.

This program is named after the whimsical graphic you see displayed here, which depicts a half-made rainbow covered with tiny stick figures painting, hammering, and operating cranes and trucks as they work to finish it. The image is a perfect metaphor for the idea that there are many small steps in building anything beautiful—a dream, a piece of writing, a life.

Learn more about the Indiana Writers Center