Youth Summer Camp: 9th-12th Graders with Jessie Ann Foley IN-PERSON

IN-PERSON for summer 2023

StoryStudio is pleased to offer full scholarships to students who are unable to meet the tuition requirements.
If your child would like to apply for a scholarship, please ask them to fill out this form.

SOLD OUT – WAITLIST ONLY

July 10 – 14 / 9am – 12pm Central

Do you love to write? Do you spend your free time scribbling in notebooks, scratching poems in the margins of your math homework, and thinking up stories and characters? Then this workshop is for you—guaranteed to inspire you and keep you writing all summer long!

In this week-long Creative Writing Camp, campers will write without worrying about grades or deadlines, create new work and polish existing pages, and work closely with professional writers who will help to guide their process and answer any questions about writing, publishing, living the writing life, and more.

At the end of the week, the writers will present their stories and leave with a poem, short story, monologue, essay, or even a graphic novel. Best of all, campers get to meet other teenage writers who are serious and excited about their stories!

The week will have several components:

  • Author’s Craft: Campers will engage in short, published pieces as we explore ways professional writers produce vivid, imaginative work. We’ll investigate how language comes to life on the page and “borrow” those techniques as we experiment in our own writing. 
  • Writing: Writing prompts and activities will spark imagination, help break through blocks, and encourage new heights of creativity. Campers will have a chance to explore various genres including poetry, flash fiction, and graphic memoir. 
  • Workshopping: Sharing work and giving feedback on what’s working well and what opportunities we can find in each piece (whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or theater). We’ll talk about where we can extend scenes and dialogue to push the narrative, how word choice can affect the piece as a whole, how to spice up language and how writers can find—and trust—their own amazing original voice.
  • Showcase: Campers will have the opportunity to rehearse and perform their written work in the Studio. Students can invite 2 friends or family to attend.

Jessie Ann Foley is the Printz honor-winning author of the novels The Carnival at Bray, Neighborhood Girls, Sorry for Your Loss, You Know I’m No Good and Breda’s Island. Her work has been named to best-of lists by Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, YALSA, Bank Street, Entertainment Weekly, and many other outlets, and has been featured on school and library recommended reading lists across the United States. Jessie lives with her husband and four children in Chicago.

Daily Timeline & Breakdowns

  • 9am: 45 mins
    • Warm-up and community-building
  • Mentor text reading & craft discussion
    • 6-minute break
  • 9:45 am: 35 minutes – Individual Studio Time & Break-out sessions with Facilitator
    • 8-minute break
  • 10:45 am: Whole community share
    • Honoring the day’s work
    • Goal-setting
  • 11:30am: END