Your path: Teen Writers
Creative Writing Workshop
for High School Students
"That was the first time I'd been exposed to other people as interested in writing as myself, and it was truly inspiring. I loved every second."
– Madeline Gobbo, 2007 workshop participant
Binford Workshop for Teen Writers
One-week Workshop
Monday, July 21 to Friday, July 25
Two-week Workshop
Monday, July 21 to Friday, August 1
Application
Application Deadline July 1
The Binford Workshop accepts applications beginning January 1, 2008. A student is encouraged to apply early, as the workshop fills rapidly. A student receives confirmation within four weeks after receipt of application. The deadline for applications is July 1, 2008.
Creative Writing Program
The Binford Workshop for Teen Writers is a two-week seminar in which high school students (ages 14 to 18) receive college-level creative writing instruction.
Located on Marylhurst University's beautiful, historic campus, the workshop focuses on developing a student's skills as creative writer, thinker, observer and performer and strives to create a critical, generous and diverse community of learners and writers. The program combines writing workshops, seminars on writing craft and literary zine production and readings.
Seminar-style classes are taught by professional, working writers, including poets Van Wheeler, Todd McKinney and Jesse Lichtenstein and prose writers Natalie Serber, Gina Colantino and Jay Ponteri. Guests include short story writer Karen Russell and poet Matt Hart.
Students may attend the one-week session from Monday, July 21 to Friday, July 25 or the two-week session from Monday, July 21 to Friday, August 1.
Each student is invited to participate in the all-student reading and reception on Friday, August 1.
Workshops
The program offers introductory and advanced workshops in prose (fiction & nonfiction) and poetry.
A student generates material through guided writing exercises, studies craft through models and engages in a critical discussion of fellow classmates' work. By the end of the program, a student produces two complete short stories (or memoirs) and five to seven poems.
Readings
Faculty members and two visiting writers give public readings and short talks on craft. At open mike night during the first week, a student can share his or her work. The program ends with an all-student reading to which parents and community members are invited.
Meals
A student brings his or her own lunch, or food can be purchased from the Marylhurst University bookstore. Food (pizza & party subs) is ordered for the early evening readings. The all-student reading and reception on Friday, August 1 is a bring-your-own-food-and-beverage family picnic.
Schedule
Week One
Monday, July 21, 8 am to 3:30 pm
Tuesday, July 22, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Wednesday, July 23, 9 am to 5:30 pm
Thursday, July 24, 9 am to 5:30 pm
Friday, July 25, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Week Two
Monday, July 28, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Tuesday, July 29, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Wednesday, July 30, 9 am to 3:30 pm
Thursday, July 31, 9 am to 5:30 pm
Friday, Aug 1, 9 am to 6 pm
Tuition
Two-week Workshop: $475
One-week Workshop: $325
Scholarships
Marylhurst offers part-scholarships to a handful of students. Recipients must attend the two-week course. To apply, send registration form (with appropriate box checked) by May 15, 2008. Scholarships are awarded based on need. The University asks students who have financial means to pay for the workshop to not apply for a scholarship.
Faculty & Guest Writers
Van Wheeler earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College. He teaches writing and literature seminars at Marylhurst University and Portland Community College. He has published poems in Southern Poetry Review, Rocky Mountain Review and Forklift.
Natalie Serber is the recipient of the John Steinbeck Award for Short Fiction, the H. E. Francis Award for Fiction, a San Francisco PEN Women's Fiction Award and the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction. Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Inkwell Magazine, Bellingham Review and the anthology, Airfare: Poems, Stories and Essays on Flying. She received an MFA from Warren Wilson College.
Jesse Lichtenstein writes poetry, fiction and journalism. His writing has appeared in many magazines, newspapers and literary journals. He grew up in Southern Oregon and now lives in Portland, where he is at work on a novel and a collection of poems.
Gina Colantino, an alumna of Marylhurst University, is a student in the MFA program at New Mexico State University. She has published fiction in M Review. She lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Here is Todd McKinney with some fish he caught. They couldn't quit. It was like his line was their ticket to some festival of peace and love and understanding. Oh, Irony, he loves you. Of course, these are the only fish he caught all week, and it only took about thirty minutes. The rest of the time, nothing. Kind of like writing. Some days, the words surface from who-knows-where. Students won't go fishing but will read and write a lot of Creative Nonfiction, and it will sustain them because words are like that. He will be your guide from the Great Midwest, more specifically, from Muncie, Indiana, where he teaches writing at Ball State University. One can find Todd's work in Cimarron Review, storySouth, Smartish Pace, Bordersenses, 400WORDS.COM, Greensboro Review and Puerto Del Sol. Yes, he believes in rock & roll.
Jay Ponteri earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College. An associate professor in the English Literature & Writing Department at Marylhurst University, he teaches seminars in short prose, fiction writing and contemporary literature. He has published prose in Clackamas Literary Review, Eye-Rhyme: A Journal of New Literature, Northwest Edge iii, Cimarron Review and Del Sol Review.
Matt Hart is the author of the poetry collection Who's Who Vivid and three chapbooks: Revelated, Sonnet, and Simply Rocket, and the editor of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety. His work has appeared in many print and online journals including: Gulf Coast, H_NGM_N, jubilat and Ploughshares. The 2007 John Ciardi Fellow in Poetry at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and plays in the band TRAVEL.
Contact Us
For more information on The Binford Workshop for Teen Writers, contact Jay Ponteri.
