New York Writing Workshop

Sarah Lawrence College

I just got back from New York where I attended a young writers' workshop for high school students. It was held at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

 I enjoyed it because I got to make new friends from around that area and I became a better writer. We were divided into small groups and had teachers that were either current students of alumni of Sarah Lawrence. We did a lot of writing exercises in our small groups, and then read our work aloud to the other students. Throughout the week, you could choose to put your name in a hat and be picked to read something that you wrote out loud in front of the whole camp, rather than just in front of your small group.

Reading Out Loud

 Reading what you wrote out loud to others can be really scary, but it does help you to hear and see what you might not otherwise hear or see if you simply read your work silently. After everyone read what they wrote, people would give compliments about what they liked about it. It helped us support each other and our work, which is really important as writers. Hearing other peoples' work is also good because then you can hear writing that you like and don't like, which can give you ideas about what to write and how to write.

Writing Exercises

Some of our writing exercises were really creative, and some were hard. One of our exercises was writing a story about a picture that we chose. It was fun, but hard depending on what your picture was.

Another exercise we did was everyone had a situation: a break up, someone telling their friend they were gay, etc. And you had to write a conversation between two characters that indirectly talked about their situation. It got pretty tough. And the story had to be all dialogue, not what the characters were thinking, or doing, just their words. It was hard to convey what you wanted to without including actions or gestures.

One of my favorite exercises was on the very last day. Each one of us picked a song that we liked, and wrote it down. Then the teachers played each of our songs for a minute, and we had to write about whatever we thought of when the song came on. It could be a mood: happy, sad, angry. Or it could be what some of the lyrics were in the song made us think of. There were about 20 songs that we listened to in all. It was a hard exercise because sometimes I didn't know what to write about. But I ended up liking my final product and I was glad to hear that my classmates liked it too. It was interesting to see how even though we all listened to the same songs, we each had a completely different story come out of it.

Theater Workshops

In addition to these writing workshops that we did, we also attended theater workshops. The idea was that theater and writing are related, especially when it comes to writing for theater. We got to vote on our first, second, and third choices for what theater activity we wanted to be in. Some of the specialties included: Puppetry, Slam Poetry, Sketch Comedy Writing, and Improv.

I was in Solo Performance.We wrote monologues from different perspectives and read them out loud to the class. It was also really scary at first, but gradually I got used to it. We would spend about two hours of our day in theater workshops.

Final Performance

At the end of the week, we had a final performance for all of the students. You could choose to read something from your theater specialty or just read some of your own work. It was fun to see what others had gotten done in their theater specialties, as well as to support your friends. I read a poem that I wrote about a year and a half ago. It felt good to hear everyone cheer and clap for me and know that I was supported by my friends. 

Overall, I'm glad I had this experience to become a better writer and to meet other young writers. I think I learned a lot, both about myself and about writing. I made good friends and I wish I could go back next year.