young writers

A Workshop in Writing for High School Students (ages 16-18) Session I: June 23-July 6, 2013 Session II: July 14-27, 2013 Apply Now! Young Writers is an intensive two-week workshop for intellectually curious, motivated high-school students who value writing. Our goal is to help students develop their creative and critical abilities with language—to become better, more productive writers and more insightful thinkers. For more than nineteen years, Young Writers has provided a lively, supportive environment where students can stretch their talents, discover new strengths, and challenge themselves in the company of peers who share their interests. Young Writers takes place at Kenyon College, a leading liberal arts college renowned for its tradition of literary study. The program is sponsored by The Kenyon Review, one of the country’s preeminent literary magazines. Our Approach Writers discover what they want to say—their ideas, images, narrative direction—in the act of writing (and rewriting). Writing, thinking, and imagining, in other words, are part of the same creative process. Thus, at Young Writers, students write to explore ideas, then develop those ideas through further writing. Because good writers are also avid readers, students read short stories, poems, and essays, which they discuss, write about, and use as inspiration for their own work. “Through the varied prompts and non-threatening atmosphere each person could write something truly personal, something unique about that individual. That is how I became comfortable sharing my work, and seeing myself as a different writer, not the ‘best’ or the ‘worst’ but a person with something to say.”—Young Writers participant Daily Activities Workshop groups (with no more than twelve students in each group) meet for five hours a day. In addition to freewriting exercises and responses to “prompts,” students write stories.
May 27-29, 2016 Application deadline February 22! Download the Application Apply Online  The Champlain College Young Writers’ Conference (CCYW), a residential writers’ weekend specifically for high school students, takes place this May 27 - 29 on the hillside campus of Burlington's Champlain College. For dedicated young writers, it is a chance to meet others who share their passion for telling the stories of their lives. It is also an opportunity to study the craft of writing with some of New England's most celebrated authors and teachers. Participate in over ten hours of intensive workshops in fiction, poetry, songwriting, creative nonfiction, script writing, and environmental writing; exchange and critique manuscripts; listen to faculty readings; attend interactive craft sessions; and share work with the CCYW community.  On Friday, go to the good place with our keynote speaker, award winning poet & essayist, Ellen Bryant Voigt. Ellen is the author of CLAIMING KIN (1976), THE FORCES OF PLENTY (1983), THE LOTUS FLOWERS (1987), TWO TREES (1992), KYRIE (1995), SHADOW OF HEAVEN (2002), MESSENGER: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (2007), and HEADWATERS (2013). A former Vermont State Poet, she has received the Emily Clark Balch Award, the Hanes Poetry Award, the Teasdale Award, three Pushcart Prizes, inclusion in Scribner's BEST AMERICAN POETRY, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Merrill Fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. Ellen designed and directed the nation's first low-residency MFA Writing Program and currently teaches at Warren Wilson College and Breadloaf. In 2015, she received the coveted John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur fellowship. And there's more: Friday evening, read to jazz with Michael Chorney’s celebrated jazz ensemble, or read.
Now accepting late applications for Summer 2016: APPLY HERE! Summer 2016 Dates * Session I: June 19-July 1 * Session II: July 3-22 Est. 1982 Watch the Video Before the founding in 1982 of the Young Writers Workshop at the University of Virginia, residential programs for young creative writers didn’t exist. View Our Story & Photo Gallery Featured Artist Cyndi Robinson-Carney Residential Teacher-Counselor, 2002-2004 Testimonial I had the pleasure of visiting YWW twice to give readings and craft lectures, and both times I was impressed by the energy and intelligence of the students.  You can tell a lot about the quality of a group by the kind of audience they comprise, and I remember sitting at the back of the auditorium as a visiting poet gave her reading and watching the students respond to all the nuances in the work, whether by laughing or sighing or nodding at all the right places, and I thought, Wow, they’re good. John McNally Visiting Writer.
In April, we asked you to help us make the Young Writers Program even better. We wanted to know about the impact that NaNoWriMo has already had on you as a writer, plus how much more you could accomplish with the new website we plan to launch in 2015. Thanks so much for all your amazing feedback. It helped refine our long-term plans and directly shaped our upcoming campaign for the new YWP site. The Stories of Tomorrow campaign will run from June 9 to June 23. During that time, we hope to raise ,000 from NaNoWriMo participants and other funders. All of that money will support the future of the YWP.