Look and Listen

Biography

Dallas Nicole Woodburn is a junior at the University of Southern California majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Entrepreneurship and Leadership. She hopes to make a career as a writer and also start a publishing company with the special aim of giving young writers their “big breaks.” Dallas has self-published two collections of short stories – the latest of which, 3 a.m., is available on Amazon.com and was featured on the nationally syndicated PBS book talk show “Between the Lines.” Dallas has also been a featured author in the nationally-released books So, You Wanna Be a Writer?, Good Friends Come Along Once in a Lifetime, and four Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies. She has published articles in a variety of national magazines including Family Circle, The Writer, Writer’s Digest, CO-ED, Justine, Listen, Encounter, and Writing. For her work as a biweekly opinion columnist for her school newspaper, The Daily Trojan, she was recently awarded the prestigious Jim Murray Memorial Foundation Scholar award. In addition, Dallas is the Coordinator of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference Young Writers Program every summer. In 2000, Dallas founded a non-profit organization called “Write On!” to encourage kids to read and write. Check out her inspirational writing website, www.zest.net/writeon, which features essay contests, reading lists, writing prompts, author interviews, and more. Through “Write On!” Dallas also holds an annual Holiday Book Drive to benefit underprivileged children in her community. In the past four years, she has collected and distributed 8,342 new books to local kids, many of whom she was told otherwise would not have received anything for Christmas. Dallas also uses proceeds from selling her two books to endow a “Write On! Scholarship” to send deserving youths to summer writing camps in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Dallas also tutors elementary school children for two-to-three hours weekly and routinely visits classrooms to share her love for reading and writing. In addition, she volunteers with “Caregivers Assisting the Elderly,” a program that helps housebound seniors in the community with minor chores and yardwork. As a Youth Ambassador for Caregivers, Dallas also helps with media outlets, fundraising campaigns, and the recruitment of new members. In addition, she is a camp counselor for the USC student organization Troy Camp, which takes more than 200 underprivileged inner-city elementary school kids to camp each summer. She is also President of the USC Undergraduate Society of English Majors and Coordinator of the annual Academic Competitions for USC’s “Conquest” event. For her initiative, selflessness, and enthusiastic volunteerism, Dallas has been honored with the national Jackie Kennedy-Onassis/Jefferson Award and the Congressional Gold Medal. She was also named CosmoGIRL! magazine’s “Girl of the Month” and her “Write On!” foundation has been featured in Girls’ Life and Writing magazines.

Inspiration

Born three months prematurely, weighing a mere two pounds, six ounces, Dallas considers each day a blessing and tries to – as legendary basketball coach John Wooden is fond of saying – “make each day her masterpiece.”