We are excited to announce our 2023 summer camps! We hope your child can join us and share in the fun of writing with fellow young creatives. All writers welcome - always!
General information:
Rising grades 3-4
9:00am-12:00pm
Are you a fan of Harry Potter or Wings of Fire? Do you love fire-breathing beasts and wand-wielding magicians? Then come cast a writerly spell with us! With the wave of a #2 wand, we will conjure fantastical creatures, map out unique worlds, and create exciting adventures. Who knew writing could be so magical?
Rising grades 5-7
1:00pm-4:00pm
Gamebooks belong to a super fun genre in which readers choose their own paths through the stories. Parents probably remember popular gamebook series from the 80's and 90's, but did you know that they are making a comeback? Structure is the focus of this camp, as gamebooks require a ton of planning and organization. Students will carefully map their multi-path stories and learn how to entice their readers with interesting premises, compelling characters, and high-stakes, choice-based plot twists. They then draft their stories and publish digitally in a clickable format. Fun!
Rising grades 5-7
9:00am-12:00pm
AND
Rising grades 8 and up
1:00pm-4:00pm
Kaiju, translated loosely as "Strange Beast", is a Japanese genre that involves giant monsters attacking cities and battling with the military. Think Godzilla, King Kong, and Mothra! In our camp, we will design awe-inspiring kaiju of our own, develop their origins and backstories, and give them unique powers and weaknesses. Then we'll put our kaiju into their own action-packed, cinematic stories!
Rising grades 8 and up
9:00am-12:00pm
Microfiction goes by many names, including flash fiction, short-shorts, sudden fiction, postcard fiction, and nanofiction, and it is becoming wildly popular. While authors typically challenge themselves to write longer, more complex works, the challenge in writing microfiction is to create meaningful stories with fewer words. We’ll practice important techniques in word economy and selectivity, and we’ll decide what it is that we truly need to tell stories and what’s better left on the cutting room floor. Creation, experimentation, revision, and collaboration will be our keys as we complete several projects of different genres and forms, and then we’ll compile our work into a self-published class book!
Rising grades 3-4
9:00am-12:00pm
As ocean travel flourished in the 1700s and 1800s, the seas were full of dangerous pirates. What was a pirate's life like? What sort of quests did they undertake? How did they operate their schemes and avoid capture? Find out as we read about Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Captain Jack, Madame Cheng, and other fearsome pirates. We’ll use what we learned to craft our own amazing tales of adventure on the high seas!
Rising grades 5-7
1:00pm-4:00pm
Imagination is everything in this creative camp! First, we will create a portrait of an otherworldly land filled with wonderful and mysterious things. Then we will add fascinating characters, an important quest, and elements of magic to write an amazing story. If you love to read about wizards, dragons, enchanted forests, dark lands, and other marvelous people and places, then you’ll love writing a fantasy story of your own!
Rising grades 5-7
9:00am-12:00pm
Something fishy is happening in your town, but citizens can rest easy knowing your detective is on the case! Create a smart and savvy detective character who works to solve a crime by analyzing clues, following leads, interrogating suspects, and eventually apprehending the perpetrator. Lots of opportunity for creating drama and suspense in this camp!
Rising grades 8 and up
1:00pm-4:00pm
If you like books and movies such as The Hunger Games, Station Eleven, or Divergent, you should try your hand at writing dystopian fiction. These are stories that are absolutely full of tension and conflict, rich detail, and usually some parallel commentary on the issues humans face in society. First, you'll imagine a dark world in cataclysmic decline, then add characters who must fight against the control of evil authorities and environmental ruin just for a chance at survival. This class is an in-depth look into the dystopian genre in which you'll practice worldbuilding, character and plot development, tension and suspense, and so much more.
Rising grades 8 and up
9:00am-12:00pm
Have you ever heard of a tragicomedy? How about docufiction, or dark fantasy, or Weird West? All of these are mixes of the main genres of fiction that lend a new and fresh take on the common forms. In this workshop, students will learn about the characteristics of different genres and decide how to select and combine elements to make new stories. They will then develop characters and put them in conflict in order to develop a plot that showcases their imaginations and story writing skills.
Rising grades 5-7
1:00pm-4:00pm
Of course, actual time travel is not possible yet, but luckily we can go anywhere and any-WHEN with the power of our imaginations! The idea of time travel has captivated people for centuries, and so many amazing books and stories have been based on this concept, from HG Wells’ The Time Machine to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Come to camp to imagine your time machine and the places it will take you as you write an amazing story that melds science fiction, fantasy, history, and mystery!
Rising grades 3-4
9:00am-12:00pm
One of our most popular camps is back again! Create your superhero and his/her nemesis, and bestow them with their special superpowers - perhaps invisibility, x-ray vision, or super speed! Then, have them face off in battle in which only the hero or the villain achieves his or her goal. This camp is great for kids who love to draw as well as write stories full of action and drama!
Rising grades 5-7
1:00pm-4:00pm
Quests have been a part of the human narrative since we first began telling stories, and they remain just as captivating and thrilling today as they were thousands of years ago. Characters are driven by a need or a want to seek, to find, to experience, and to discover, and they will stop at nothing to reach their goals! In our camp, we’ll first define an object of the quest, then create an adventurous character that rises to the challenge. Then we’ll send them on their journeys where they’ll face seemingly insurmountable obstacles and watch how they use their strength, wit, and charm to complete their quests.
Rising grades 5-7
9:00am-12:00pm
There are no stories with more action and adventure than spy stories! We’ll create sly, smart spy characters, invent disguises and gadgets for them to use, and then send them on thrilling missions where they will encounter villains, mishaps, and seemingly impossible situations. We’ll learn about techniques to write amazing spy stories, including writing suspense, action, and witty dialogue. If you like Mission Impossible, James Bond, Spy Kids, or other stories of espionage and intrigue, you’ll love this camp!
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