This year, we extended our annual summer camps for kids and teens to two weeks each instead of one, filling our property with young writers the entire month of July.
The campers themselves, ranging in age from 8 to 17, were all vibrant, fun, and filled to the brim with enthusiasm for the stories they created. As adult writers, it always helps to be reminded of what lead us to pursue writing in the first place– a wonder and fascination with the impact that words can have– and these campers certainly inspired me to never lose that exact sense of childlike wonder.
During the camps, writers had a chance to work on fiction, sci-fi, poetry, graphic novel, letter-writing, drama writing, and more! We also had three amazing published writers from the Austin area come to speak about their most recent books and what it means to live a literary life. We had Samantha M. Clark visit our week one campers to talk about her novel The Boy, The Boat, and the Beast. Week two, our writers got to meet Christina Soontornvat, author of The Changelings series. And our teen writers got to meet YA writer and Poet Laureate of Texas, Carrie Fountain and received a signed copy of her latest release, I’m Not Missing.
At the end of each session, we invited the friends and families of our young writers to the Barn to join us in hearing their work read aloud, giving the campers the chance to show off all the new work they’d accumulated, ranging from high fantasy to realistic fiction to contemplative poetry.
Each summer brings with it new stories, new faces, and new fun. We can’t wait until next summer’s camps where we can once again immerse ourselves in the natural setting of the Writing Barn and put pen to paper and write, write, write!
