WORKSHOPS

Our workshop experiences will take place at various locations, so please make note of where your favorites are happening. We’re so excited to write with you!

Click on a title to register!

AGES 9-12

All workshops for ages 9-12 are already in session.

AGES 12-15

For this 8-student workshop, RYW is partnering with a VCUarts graphic design class in the most exciting way! Divided between two dates, this workshop will consist of one 2.5-hour writing workshop and one 2-hour public reading, allowing students and designers to showcase final work. Please be sure your young person can be present at both sessions before you register!

Writing Workshop (March 23rd, 4:30-7 at VCUarts - 822 West Broad St.)

Our first two hours of workshop will be spent brainstorming, crafting, editing, erasing, peer reviewing and finalizing individual poems, prose OR flash-fiction pieces. (Each student will choose only one piece to move forward with).

In the last half hour of our workshop, six wonderfully talented designers from VCU will join us! We will pair each student with a designer — together, they will discuss the young writer’s creative piece. The designers will then take the text home and transcribe each student’s work onto spreads for a collective publication.

Public Reading (March 30th, 5-:630pm at Studio Two Three - 109 W. 15th St.)

The second Sunday of this experience will be a live reading! Open to family, friends and the general public, the reading will happen at Studio Two Three in Manchester. Our young writers will have a chance to read their pieces aloud at a microphone, while designers will have the chance to distribute copies of the workshop publication. RYW students will leave with a better understanding of how writing can transfer to print, all while seeing the inside work of a VCUarts graduate graphic design class!

Sharpen up your storytelling by working on fiction elements: plot, characters, dialogue, all the vivid stuff that’s fun to make up in your head! Don’t know whether your work will be flash fiction, a short story, a novel, something else…? Catherine will help you with pacing, too, as your story concept unfolds.

Dungeons & Dragons is a collective storytelling game played amongst friends with dice telling you what you can and can't do. You are cordially invited to come play D&D over the course of six weeks in this online campaign -- to build a character and go on an adventure with us. What makes this particular D&D game unique is that we will be taking breaks to allow writers space to write the story of their character, with the hope that -- at the end of the workshop -- the story will continue.

AGES 15-18

For this 8-student workshop, RYW is partnering with a VCUarts graphic design class in the most exciting way! Divided between two dates, this workshop will consist of one 2.5-hour writing workshop and one 2-hour public reading, allowing students and designers to showcase final work. Please be sure your young person can be present at both sessions before you register!

Writing Workshop (March 23rd, 4:30-7 at VCUarts - 822 West Broad St.)

Our first two hours of workshop will be spent brainstorming, crafting, editing, erasing, peer reviewing and finalizing individual poems, prose OR flash-fiction pieces. (Each student will choose only one piece to move forward with).

In the last half hour of our workshop, six wonderfully talented designers from VCU will join us! We will pair each student with a designer — together, they will discuss the young writer’s creative piece. The designers will then take the text home and transcribe each student’s work onto spreads for a collective publication.

Public Reading (March 30th, 5-:630pm at Studio Two Three - 109 W. 15th St.)

The second Sunday of this experience will be a live reading! Open to family, friends and the general public, the reading will happen at Studio Two Three in Manchester. Our young writers will have a chance to read their pieces aloud at a microphone, while designers will have the chance to distribute copies of the workshop publication. RYW students will leave with a better understanding of how writing can transfer to print, all while seeing the inside work of a VCUarts graduate graphic design class!

Stream of consciousness is a literary technique that writers use to allow readers deeper insight into their characters. This technique can also be used when you journal or prepare an essay. In this workshop, we will practice writing exactly what is on our minds as it appears: no editing or rewriting! Once we have done that, we will fish through our stream of consciousness pools to pick out ideas, themes, and topics to use to write poems or stories. If you would like to spend time exploring how you think and how you write, this workshop is for you!

Over the course of a three hour workshop, students will be taught the technical form and rules of screenwriting, as well as the story elements of a feature film. Students will demonstrate this knowledge by writing a one scene screenplay, encompassing the elements of a full screenplay including three act structure, conflict and resolution, and character growth. Screenplays will come from a variety of prompts that encourage students to write about conflicts and challenges they have overcome in their own lives.

Over four 3 hour sessions, students will be taught the technical form and rules of screenwriting, as well as the story elements of a feature film. These will include three act structure, conflict and resolution, and The Hero’s Journey. Students will outline their film and develop character biographies before writing a 7-12 page screenplay. Screenplays will come from a variety of prompts encouraging students to write about themselves or their experiences, within a scope that could be practically produced by the student following the completion of the class. Students will be given the opportunity to share with and receive feedback from their peers and instructor.