Lekha Writing Centers are committed to developing a generation of children who think beyond the book!
We do this by teaching our students to write creatively, using a blend of time-tested and newly developed methods to nurture each student’s imagination. In addition to teaching the art of writing, we also publish our students’ work. More than five hundred Lekha students have had their works published in anthologies, some of our students have published their own novels, and many more are working towards publishing their solo works in the future.

“I never thought that writing could be so much fun.” -Sorjo Bannerjee, Lekha Student “I thought this camp was awesome. It helped a lot with my writing skills and I had fun writing my book, A Journey in Time, and other stories with my new friends.” -Tyler Sadoff, Lekha Student (Tyler-s book, A Journey In Time, was published in October of 2009) “This is definitely different from other camps and Kavya definitely enjoyed it a lot. She likes to write stories but was not able to do it in a structured manner. But after the week-long camp she was able to write stories the right way. I strongly recommend this camp.”

Lekha is a writing school that offers classes, workshops, camps, and enrichment programs to help young writers develop lifelong writing skills that will help them grow both creatively and academically. We teach all types of writing, including but not limited to: stories, poems, plays, journalistic writing, essays, and presentations.

All of our instructors are trained in “The Lekha Way”, a unique and non-traditional method of writing instruction. Other schools often use traditional methods that take the fun and creativity out of the process, causing students to develop a fear or dislike of writing. As a result, these students will try to avoid writing, will write as little as possible, or will develop writer-s block.

At Lekha School of Creative Writing, our non-traditional methods foster a positive relationship between our students and the writing process. Our instructional model is based on Expressivist and Process pedagogies, which emphasize student-oriented and process-oriented teaching. We believe that every creative work or essay already exists inside the hearts and minds of our students, and our job is just to help them discover that. A Lekha instructor-s role is to facilitate each student’s self-expression through writing.

We guide students through all of the steps of the writing process: generating ideas, pre-writing strategies, drafting, editing and revising. We encourage our students to draw inspiration from their own experiences and instincts, and to put all of their ideas down on paper first, without getting hung up on intimidating mechanical details. Creativity and free-flowing ideas are always the first priority. A focus on grammar, spelling and other mechanics happens later, during the editing and revision stages.

The methods we use in our writing instruction are designed to free students from the harsh internal critic that is often created by traditional schooling. We utilize visualization and verbalization techniques, creative play, illustration, and other collaborative and light-hearted At Lekha, we focus on helping students to write as much and as well as they can by providing a fun and encouraging learning environment.

Lekha Writing Centers started as an experiment in the summer of 2006, when a friend asked Jyoti to guide her daughter and a few others in the art of writing. The extremely positive results that Jyoti witnessed in her students that summer inspired her to start the writing school as a subsidiary of her publishing company, Lekha Publishers, LLC. Within the next two years, her tiny summer workshop grew exponentially.

Other published authors and experienced teachers joined her team to help guide the growing number of students. After-school classes were added to the roster and new locations began to spring up all over the San Francisco Bay Area. More camps were added during Presidents’ Week and spring break, in addition to summer vacation.

Enrollment skyrocketed from just a few students in the first summer to over a hundred by the school’s third year. In years following, Lekha would have more than a thousand enrollments each summer. In 2009, Lekha began offering enrichment programs in various schools and recreation centers, which were an instant success.

Lekha is actively recruiting franchise partners who are passionate about writing, creativity, and education and can replicate the Lekha model in their own communities. New Lekha franchises can start by being operated in Parks and Recreation Centers, local schools, franchisee’s homes, or other small spaces. Then, once the Lekha brand name is established within that particular community, the franchisee can open a freestanding Lekha location.

The Lekha franchise model is easily duplicated with a low initial investment and low overhead. Franchise partners will be provided with our time-tested curriculum and tools for success to help them implement classes, camps, and workshops for children and teens. We are ready to share our expertise with our franchise partners so they too can share their love of writing with the students.

Training for our franchisees will be provided at our headquarters before beginning the franchise offerings. We will teach our franchise partners our curriculum, with instruction on how to focus on art and creativity. In our experience, we-ve found that it-s important for a student to enjoy writing before he or she is able to improve upon their writing. We will show our partners how to get students excited about writing, and how to turn that excitement into creative and academic success.

Once a franchisee completes training at our headquarters and commences the Lekha franchise, a Lekha corporate management trainer will visit the franchise to assist with the first sessions, and support the franchisee with his or her knowledge and experience. Ongoing training is provided to our franchise partners to ensure the most helpful, cutting-edge curriculum is being offered to our students.