Dakota Writing Project

School administrators and teachers are invited to nominate talented high school students for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A Creative Writers’ Camp,” to be held Saturday, September 22, 2007, at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. The Dakota Writing Project (DWP), a local teachers' organization affiliated with the National Writing Project, and the Vermillion Literary Project (VLP), an award-winning student organization, are hosting the one-day camp.

The camp, which will run from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., includes workshops on short fiction, poetry, revision, and performance, to be followed by a public reading in Farber Hall. “No experience with writing stories or poetry is necessary,” VLP leader Sara Kniffen said. “We welcome students who have demonstrated creativity in some form, with a genuine interest in writing.”

The $50 registration fee includes a day of workshops, a camp t-shirt, lunch, refreshments during breaks, and a copy of the VLP 2007 magazine. Reduced-fee scholarships based on financial need are available; email dwp-AT-usd-DOT-edu for information. The registration deadline is September 7, 2007. Enrollment is limited, so nominated students are encouraged to register as soon as possible. The registration form, biographies of the teacher-writers leading the workshops, and additional information are available online at http://www.usd.edu/orgs/projlit/camp.

Camp workshop leaders include Mary Begley (Vermillion High School), Krista Bruggeman (Lennox High School), Annie Christain (University of South Dakota), Assistant Professor Greg Dyer (University of Sioux Falls), Lindy Obach (University Center, Sioux Falls), Associate Professor Lee Ann Roripaugh (University of South Dakota), and Associate Professor Dennis Sjolie (University of South Dakota). Additional DWP teacher-consultants and leaders from Prairie Winds, a South Dakota organization working to improve student and teacher writing, will assist with the workshop led by Dennis Sjolie.

This is the second year of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Camp. Last year, twenty-nine student writers from South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska participated in the camp.

“The camp brings together high school writers with teacher-writer professionals from the Dakota Writing Project and Prairie Winds, as well as university student leaders from the Vermillion Literary Project,” DWP director Michelle Rogge Gannon explained, “for a day of writing and collaboration.”