Hermit Crab Stories: People often ask writers where their ideas come from and after you take this workshop, you’ll be able to confidently say: “Everywhere!” We’ll look at the fun, free-wheeling craft of the “hermit crab” story, which like the crab that gives it the name, finds existing structures (like menus, how-to guides, science textbooks, newspaper columns, and much more) to inhabit with storytelling possibilities.
Fiction – Inspiration Labs: Ever feel stuck in your writing, uncertain how to get started or how to get your initial inspiration off the ground and flying? These workshops will introduce you to a series of generative exercises, prompts, and practices to light the fuse for your imagination, get your words on the page, and hone your prose style. Each session will offer different writing exercises and may be taken as stand-alone workshops or as a sequence.
Advanced Fiction: Students who are already working on a longer-form short story, novella, or other project are invited to submit up to 20 pages of their work for focused editorial workshops that will help to shape, refine, and advance their work.
Jared Green is a Pushcart Prize-nominated author, literary critic, and professor of English literature at Stonehill College. His fiction, poetry, and critical writing have appeared in numerous journals, including Colorado Review, Greensboro Review, Gulf Coast, Chicago Review, Phoebe, Subnivean, and The Missouri Review Aud-Cast. He is a recipient of a Gurney Norman Fiction Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Fiddlehead Fiction Prize, the Columbia Journal Fiction Prize, and the Cagibi Macaron Prize. His work has been recognized by the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing with an MVICW Fellowship and by the state of Rhode Island with a Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowship. He is the founding director of the Walden Woods Young Writers Workshop.
Please contact Jared at Jared_Green@concordacademy.org with any questions about the Walden Woods Young Writers Workshop.
Step into the world of sound and story! In this Walden Woods course, you’ll team up to write, record, and perform your very own radio play—complete with sound effects, music, and character voices. We’ll start with a crash course in podcasting techniques, then dive into mics, sound mixing, and radio storytelling magic. You’ll learn how to bring scenes to life using only your voice and sound. By the end of the week, we’ll have a finished audio drama to share—written and performed by you! No podcasting or acting experience needed—just imagination and a love of stories.
Nivedhan Singh is a former member of the Performing Arts faculty at Concord Academy where he taught Digital Music Production. He has hosted several performing arts and comedic podcasts. He studied music and Sound Recording Technologies at Ithaca College and is now a professional audio engineer and arts educator in Nashville, Tennessee, where he continues to inspire and nurture young creatives. His unique blend of professional expertise and educational experience makes him an exceptional guide for aspiring musicians and podcast producers. This summer marks Nivedhan’s second year with Walden Woods.
This quick introduction to screenwriting will cover the basics of formatting, writing visually, as well as the tools necessary for creating engaging dramatic conflict. Students will write short scenes in a variety of genres to experiment with the form. Participants should bring a laptop and have access to any online free version of a screenwriting platform (such as Writers Duet or Celtx). Alternatively, Mac users can download the Highland demo (available on the Mac App store) and PC users can download the freeware Trebly.
Justin Bull is a film educator and screenwriter. He has taught the film program at Concord Academy for seventeen years, residing on campus with his family. His produced work has screened worldwide, including premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, the London Sci-Fi Film Festival, and Fantastic Fest. He earned an MFA in Film Directing from the American Film Institute. When not teaching or writing, Justin likes to make short, odd films with his family in far off places.
We will explore the poem as a portal, a passage to anywhere–any door left ajar will be ours to enter as figuratively as we please, with a view to something new and capacious. In practical terms, this will translate to reading and writing poems with in-depth class discussion designed to hone the critical skills and strategies necessary to the poetic craft. Each workshop will focus on a different aspect of the poetry-writing craft and students may take as many workshops as they please–each one will be distinct and will not require having taken the others in order to participate.
Meia Geddes holds a BA in English and Literary Arts from Brown University, MS in library science from Simmons University, and is attending UMass Boston for an MFA in creative writing. She has been the recipient of a Fulbright grant to South Africa and has written two books, Love Letters to the World and The Little Queen.
Story Hacks Session 1: Using Fairy Tale Structure To Help Build Your Own Story
Story Hacks Session 2: Making Your Audience Care, With The Four P’s Of High Stakes
If you project humanity forward 200 years, what do you see? Aliens? Interplanetary travel? Wastelands? What about 2000 years? What are the strangest, darkest, and most wondrous possibilities? These workshops are all about walking the imagined roads of other spaces and other times and building worlds that feel real and alive with characters from your wildest dreams!
Mark Cecil is an author, journalist and host of The Thoughtful Bro podcast, for which he conducts interviews with an eclectic roster of Academy-award winning and bestselling storytellers. Formerly a journalist for Reuters, he has also written for LitHub, The Millions, Writer’s Digest, andWBUR’s Cognoscenti, among other publications. His work has been featured on NPR, The Creative Independent, The Washington Post, andmore. He is Head of Strategy for A Mighty Blaze and he has taught writing at Grub Street and UCLA. His debut novel BUNYAN AND HENRY, OR, THE BEAUTIFUL DESTINY is out now from Pantheon Books.
When we trek the depths of our introspection, what might rise to the surface? As we attempt to illuminate insight about our experiences we otherwise might hide, we will explore the personal essay as genre, weaving as organizational structure, and the breaking of form. In doing so, we will rely on both the personal essay and some of its generic possibilities to empower us to craft authentic expressions of ourselves on the page.
Amra Brooks writes creative nonfiction, poetry, as well as essays and reviews about contemporary art. Her new memoir is forthcoming from Dopamine Books in 2026. Her novella California was published by Cali Thornhill DeWitt’s Teenage Teardrops in 2008. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Inventory, Khôra, Printeresting, Entropy, This Long Century, and many other publications. She grew up in California and has taught creative writing at the University of California in Santa Cruz and San Diego, and Muhlenberg College. She now lives in Providence, Rhode Island and directs the creative writing program at Stonehill College in Easton, MA where she is a Full Professor. She curates the Raymo Literary Series and co-produces The Electro-Library podcast. https://www.amra-brooks.com/
If you project humanity forward 200 years, what do you see? Aliens? Interplanetary travel? Wastelands? What about 2000 years? What are the strangest, darkest, and most wondrous possibilities? This week is all about walking the imagined roads of the future. On the first day, we’ll explore the dual genres of dystopia and utopia, and complete a series of generative exercises that delve into our deepest fears and most radical hopes. On the second day, we’ll explore climate fiction and environmental writing, using sensory prompts to build a compelling vision of our planet’s ecological future. On the final day, we’ll do a collaborative world-building sequence in small groups, because a new world is something we must create together.
Sara Daniele Rivera is a Cuban Peruvian American artist, writer, translator, and educator. Her writing has appeared in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, Solstice, Waxwing, The Bat City Review, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology, and elsewhere. She was the winner of the 2018 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry and a 2022 Tin House resident in Speculative Fiction. Her debut book of poetry, The Blue Mimes (Graywolf Press, 2024), was the recipient of the 2023 Academy of American Poets First Book Award. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
When we trek the depths of our introspection, what might rise to the surface? As we attempt to illuminate insight about our experiences we otherwise might hide, we will explore the personal essay as genre, weaving as organizational structure, and the breaking of form. In doing so, we will rely on both the personal essay and some of its generic possibilities to empower us to craft authentic expressions of ourselves on the page.
Abbigail Baldys was raised in South Williamsport, PA. They studied English writing and captained the women’s soccer team at the University of Pittsburgh. They earned their MFA in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College of California and were named the Judith Lee Stronach Scholar for 2014. Their poetry has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, The Laurel Review, RHINO, BlazeVOX, and elsewhere. They teach Media Studies and English at Stonehill College, where they currently serve as the Associate Director of Tutoring Services. They live, collect paperclips, and produce electronic music in Jamaica Plain, MA.
We will explore the poem as a portal, a passage to anywhere–any door left ajar will be ours to enter as figuratively as we please, with a view to something new and capacious. In practical terms, this will translate to reading and writing poems with in-depth class discussion designed to hone the critical skills and strategies necessary to the poetic craft. This will be a studio class, encouraging and examining student work within a workshop format, but we will also cover a wide range of poetry, contemporary and otherwise, from poets aligned with our explorations and poets who may be opposed.
Topi Dasgupta holds a PhD from Harvard University and an MFA from Boston University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Agni, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Journal of Asian Studies, Rhino, Prism, Off the Coast, Nixes Mate Review, and Main Street Rag. Current projects include a new collection of poems and a translation of an eighteenth-century Sanskrit epic by the Indian pre-modern poet Bharatchandra. She currently teaches at Concord Academy.
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camp@concordacademy.org
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