We are pretty excited about our first Winter Writing Camp, Saturday, February 24, 2018, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Public Library of Youngstown & the Mahoning Valley and St. John’s Episcopal Church. We’ll enjoy cool warm-up activities for writers and readers of all ages and experience levels. The day is free with registration, and includes sessions for children, teens, adults, and child-adult pairs. Children under 12 have to be accompanied by an adult. Free registration includes lunch and child care for children under 5.

*Registration is closed. Thank you for such an enthusiastic response!*

WINTER WRITING CAMP ITINERARY
Sessions will take place at the Public Library of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley & St. John’s Episcopal Church

Session 1    10:00 to 10:45

Option A: Adult Beginner Poetry/Anne Garwig
Adults

This workshop will cater specifically to folks who are true beginners at writing poetry. If you’ve always admired poetry and yearned for the ability to express yourself in verse, this is a great place to start. Or maybe you dabbled when you were younger, but have been away from the art form for some time. We will explore some of the basic traditional techniques and forms, and we will discuss written works of poetry from contemporary authors as well as classic favorites like Robert Frost and Sylvia Plath.

Option B: Reading Children’s Books/Terry Benton
Adults, Teens and Accompanied Children

Children’s books are fun! Join us for a brief discussion of the importance of reading for children and parents followed by a discussion of tips and strategies for finding fun and interesting books at the public library, along with examples of some wonderful books.

Option D: Creative Writing Toolbox for Tweens/Allison Graf
Upper Elementary to Middle School

Learn techniques to help write stories at this creative writing session geared towards upper elementary to middle school students. We’ll cover great beginnings, fleshing out your characters, how to keep a story’s plot going somewhere, and what it means to ‘show, don’t tell.’

Session 2    11:00-11:45

Option A: Let’s Get Personal /Kris Harrington
High School Through Adult

This workshop will focus on creating personal non-fiction writing that both tells a story and speaks to a larger theme. Participants will read and hear samples of personal writing from The Sun and The Moth, and then we’ll get to work on creating short personal, theme-based pieces.

Option B: Being Seen: Attracting Your Ideal Readers/Stacey Schneider
High School Through Adult

This interactive workshop will help you learn how to attract your ideal readers and apply a funnel approach to create your brand.  Participants will learn how to lead with who they are and what they stand for in order to expedite the growth of their platform.

Option C: Writing Together /Ginny Taylor
Adult and Middle School

Writing is often a solitary endeavor. But what might happen if we teamed up with someone else? Come discover fun and creativity in this collaborative writing workshop designed for middle-schoolers and adults. Together, you’ll write poems, a story, and creatively journal. If you’re a parent or an adult with a special middle-schooled age person in your life, this workshop is perfect for both of you. All supplies included.

Option D: Writing Together/Terry Murcko
Adults plus Children Ages 4 to 10

Adult and child become an authoring team in this fun workshop for children ages 4 to 10. How do creativity and experience work together in the writing process? You will see it in action here!

Pasta Bar & Open Mic       12:00-1:00
Session 3    1:15-2:00

Option A: There’s an App For That!/Robin Wesson
High school through adult

There are so many writing platforms for sharing your work that it can be challenging to find them all. We will explore several, including WordPress, Facebook and Amazon Kindle.

Option B: Flash Fiction, Prose Poetry, and Other Cross-Pollinations: An Exploration of Hybrid Forms/William R. Soldan
High School Through Adult

Hybrid forms aren’t new by any means, yet their malleability encourages us to push against boundaries in ways traditional forms don’t. Here, we’ll discuss various “cross-genres,” study some examples, and experiment, so you’ll leave class creatively stimulated, with a broader sense of the potential for hybridity in your own writing.

Option C: Plan Your Novel/Rebecca Barnhouse
Middle School Through Adult

Writers at any stage who have a novel in mind, or a novel already begun, will benefit from this workshop. We’ll look at strategies for developing a novel, as well as tips for getting a draft written.

Option D: Children Writing/Nicole Robinson
Elementary School

In this writing session for children participants will read and write poems through a variety of playful approaches. Exploring sound, metaphor, and rhythm, each child will leave with at least one completed poem, and a page of ideas for future writing.

Session 4    2:15-3:15

Session A: Writing Your Imaginary Journey/Mari Alschuler
High School Through Adult

Embark on an exciting writing journey through space and time! Using your imagination, assorted words and writing prompts, write about someplace you’ve been, never been but want to visit, or a magical or imaginary realm. You can write in prose or poetry.

Session B: Writing Children’s Literature/Nikki Ericksen
High School Through Adult

This workshop will be an introduction to Children’s Literature. This class is perfect for beginning and experienced writers, readers, and listeners, alike. Participants will learn about the different categories within Children’s Literature and discuss the target audience and age for each. Current and classic works will be used.

Session C: Writing on Illness/Tom Pugh
High School Through Adult

Tom will be conducting a session on writing illness from a nonfiction perspective. Maybe your experience with illness was tragic and brings you to the verge of tears, maybe your experience with hospitals and doctors is hilarious. Come to this session to put it into words with Tom!

Option D: Writing a Poem in Five Images/Terry Murcko
Middle school through adult

Starting From the Hands: A make it / share it / take it exercise that shows how a poem can condense narrative, characterization, and dialogue to tell a whole story in one swift scene, all from the imagery in five quick pictures captured in five lines.

3:30 Cookies & Metaphors

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Meet the Workshop Leaders:

Mari Alschuler earned an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. Her poems and short stories have been published in national journals and anthologies. She is an Associate Professor of social work at YSU and is a poetry therapy practitioner and psychotherapist in Poland.

Rebecca Barnhouse, the author of three novels, teaches literature and fiction writing at YSU.

Terry Benton teaches children’s literature at Youngstown State University. She holds degrees in Education, English, and Curriculum and Instruction.

Nikki Ericksen has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and a BA in Professional Writing and Editing from Youngstown State University. She is working on a middle grade novel inspired by her family’s military experience.

Anne Garwig is a poet and an English instructor at Kent State University’s Salem campus. She earned her BA in English from Ohio State University and her MFA in poetry from the NEOMFA consortium. Her work has appeared in various journals and magazines, including The Literateur, Into the Void, and Broad!. She has been an associate artist in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and was selected for the 2017 Poetry Foundation Summer Teachers Institute. Anne is a native of Youngstown where she lives with her husband and their five pets.

Allison Graf works as a youth services librarian for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. Her degrees in Sports Management, Creative Writing, and Library Science might appear to make her seem worldly and interesting, but she’s not; she’s a crazy cat lady and proud of it.

Melissa Guthrie has been writing for half her life. She is the coordinator for an online 1^st 5 Pages writing workshop. She is employed with the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County and is revising a Young Adult Historical Fiction novel set in Youngstown during the summer of 1863.

Kris Harrington’s creative non-fiction has been published in Jenny and The Sun, and she’s also performed her work at local art festivals and story telling events. Kris teaches college-level writing for Kent State University and she coordinates and directs The Strand Project, a monologue-based theatrical production. She lives in Youngstown, Ohio with her husband Jim, daughters Miranda and Gillian and a menagerie of rescue pets.

Terry Murcko has written poetry and songs since 1967. He has taught Creative Writing (on and off) for forty years, and has been affiliated with the National Writing Project. His most recent publication is in River of Words (Wick Poetry Center, 2017). He also hangs out with his grand-daughter, Maddie.

Tom Pugh is a graduate of Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts. He writes creative nonfiction and focuses primarily on life events, which have often been humorous. As of late, he has been working on a humorous cancer memoir about his stay in Cleveland Clinic in 2016. He has been published in Youngstown State University’s Jenny and Akron University’s Rubbertop Review.

Nicole Robinson’s poems have appeared in Artful Dodge, Great River Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and elsewhere. She received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for her poetry in 2016, and is currently a writer-in-residence at Akron Children’s Hospital where she leads creative writing workshops for patients, families, and staff.

Stacey Schneider is a freelance writer and editor, as well as a professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown, Ohio. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree and practiced as a pharmacist for many years but teaching and writing emerged as her true life calling. She has published a book in women’s non-fiction, edited a book on communication skills for women and contributed to several books for the medical professional.

William R. Soldan holds a BA in English Literature from YSU and is a graduate of the NEOMFA program. His writing appears or is forthcoming in publications such as New World Writing, Jellyfish Review, Kentucky Review, Thuglit, The Literary Hatchet, (b)OINK, The Best American Mystery Stories 2017, and many others.

A self-proclaimed journaling activist, Ginny Taylor is a certified Journal to the Self instructor. Her writing background includes an MFA in creative writing from Ashland University, multiple publications, and teaching in college-level writing programs. Through her business called Women of Wonder, Ginny facilitates workshops where she channels her passion for empowering women through difficult life transitions and towards a new beginning.

Robin Wesson was born and raised in Youngstown. She is not sure what a “Youngstown girl” is but is proud to say she is from the city. She has traveled to many places but nothing makes her happier than seeing a Youngstown highway sign.