Word Camp
Signups for Word Camp 2024 are now OPEN!
Our Summer 2024 workshop slate abounds with magic and mystery. Signups are first-come, first-served, so sign up today to reserve your spot.
Word Camp 2024 SchedulE
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Week I: July 8th–12th
3:30–4:30 ET Spells and Skyscrapers: Urban Fantasy for Middle Schoolers
4:30–5:30 ET How to Get Away with Mystery: Mystery and Detective Fiction for Middle Schoolers
5:30–6:30 ET Twisting Tales: Rewriting Folklore and Fairytales for Middle Schoolers
5:30–6:30 ET Making a Monster: Monster-Building for Elementary Schoolers
6:30–7:30 ET (Optional) Office Hours for All Workshops
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Week II: July 15th–19th
4:30–5:30 ET Hot Off the Press: Journalism for Middle Schoolers
4:30–5:30 ET The Power of Poetry: Poetry for Elementary Schoolers
5:30–6:30 ET The Craft of Conjuring: Fantasy Writing for Middle Schoolers
5:30–6:30 ET Storytelling for the Stage: Playwriting for Elementary Schoolers
6:30–7:30 ET (Optional) Office Hours for All Workshops
Workshop Descriptions
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Week I, 3:30–4:30 ET
You never know what’s lurking inside a dumpster or hovering inside a construction site. In this workshop, we'll learn how to craft urban fantasy stories with brilliant characters and vivid settings. By the end of the week, each camper will have written a short fiction piece in a city of their own creation.
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Week I, 4:30–5:30 ET
Something foul is afoot, and you're here to write it! In this workshop, we'll creep down the avenues of the mystery genre, learning how to build suspense, craft clues, and conjure up convincing suspects. And who knows, we may even come face-to-face with some genre-bending twists!
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Week I, 5:30–6:30 ET
From Little Red Riding Hood to Koschei the Deathless, there is much to be learned about the inner workings of fairy and folk tales. But how can we take these stories one step further? In this workshop, participants will learn how to retell a tale with their own unique spin on it!
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Week I, 5:30–6:30 ET
There are monsters lurking inside us all, begging for us to tell their stories. In this workshop, participants will use writing and illustration to create our own unique monster characters.
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Week II, 4:30–5:30 ET
Extra, extra — write all about it! In this workshop on investigative journalism, reporters will learn how to research, analyze, and write journalistic pieces about the real-world events and people they care about.
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Week II, 4:30–5:30 ET
Do you think you have what it takes to be a secret agent? In this workshop, we will learn how to create suspense in our writing by taking inspiration from famous spies — real and fictional. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to invent your own spy and craft a suspenseful scene.
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Week II, 5:30–6:30 ET
Create your own universe of arcana and adventure in this fantasy writing workshop! Dive deep into what makes a fantasy story truly "fantastical" by creating your own magic systems, fantastical creatures, and maps to build a world beyond imagination.
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Week II, 5:30–6:30 ET
The stage is set for young playwrites to make their debut! This playwriting workshop will teach participants the foundations of scriptwriting and challenge them to write their own one-act play. As a finale, participants will perform their plays with their peers as cast members!
Word Camp FAQs
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During the first four days of the week, participants will learn about/read/write/discuss work within the genre, and then on the fifth day, they'll share their own pieces. Each instructor also offers optional one-on-one hours every day where kids can come in to get individualized feedback and talk about their writing.
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As much as possible, we'd like this to be a kids-only experience, just like in-person camp. Of course we understand if parents want to look over their kids’ shoulders on the first day of the workshop. After that, though, we encourage parents to step back and prepare to be wowed by what their kids write by the end of the week!
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Come with your Zoom video on and your writing brain prepared!
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Not very big — up to 20 campers. We want each writer to get lots of individual attention from the instructors, and we also want to maximize opportunities for kids to interact. Our workshops are first come, first served, so sign up quickly before space fills up!
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For the first time, YES! Please sign up for as many workshops as you’d like!
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Undergraduate students from across the U.S.! Most of our instructors are very involved in the writing communities at their schools, where they've taken and taught writing courses much like these.
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For some kids, it is! For other kids, we know they need more time. Each workshop is structured so that writers can work on their projects as much or as little as they'd like outside of the four hour-long periods. We're flexible :)
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While of course you should use your judgement about whether Word Camp is the right environment for you/your child, we encourage disabled and/or neurodivergent students to sign up. We‘ll work with you however we can to make sure that you/your child has a positive experience. That said, please know that we don’t have paraprofessionals or special education experts on our instructor team, since all instructors are college students.
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Decide based on the year the writer is going into. If the writer is going into 6th grade, sign them up for the middle school workshops, and if they’re going into 9th grade, sign them up for the high school workshops.
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Yes! Cosmic Writers Word Camp welcomes young writers wherever they are.
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Writers will come away with a piece that they can share with their friends and family, and treasure forever — plus a gorgeous digital anthology of their group’s writing.