Experiences in Summer High School College Programs?

ohiofather
Tue, 10 Jun 2014 20:54:47 +0000

I can respond about creative writing programs, as we’ve had three years of experience. (We haven’t had any experience with film, though).

I’ve sent my daughter to two other creative writing camps (in Ohio and Virginia), then after her junior year we sent her to the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. Amazing. She’d never been around such talented, creative, and fun people before. Then the instructors all are part of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop - the best of the best. Iowa is where all great writers come, from high school aged to Nobel Prize winners. We just loved Iowa City, the program, everything. She’s headed to Princeton this fall, studying creative writing/lit and biology.

I should also add that she hopes to go to Iowa again for an MFA once she’s good and ready and graduated. Maybe after she works for a few years to see the “real world”. Her instructor at the summer program said that in the last few years, Iowa Writers’ Workshop grads had won a Pulitzer, a MacArthur Genius fellowship, and even a Man Booker prize. Yes, they draw writers from all over the world - two of those prize winners were from China and New Zealand, writing in English of course.