August 20, 2009 by English

School administrators, teachers, and other educators are invited to nominate talented high school students for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A Creative Writing Camp,” to be held Saturday, September 26, 2009, 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. Both organizations make their home in the University of South Dakota English Department.

The camp, which will run from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., includes workshops on microfiction (short-short fiction), creative non-fiction, poetry, theatre, revision, and performance, to be followed by a public reading in Farber Hall. No experience with creative writing is necessary.

The $50 registration fee includes a day of workshops, a camp t-shirt, lunch, refreshments during breaks, and a copy of the VLP magazine. A limited number of reduced-fee scholarships based on financial need are available; email dwp-AT-usd.edu for information. The registration deadline is September 18, 2009. Enrollment is limited, so nominated students are encouraged to register as soon as possible. The registration form, descriptions of the workshops, biographies of the teacher-writers leading the workshops, and additional details are available online at http://orgs.usd.edu/dwp/camp.

Camp workshop leaders include Mary Begley (Vermillion High School), Paula Burns (University of South Dakota, Vermillion), Connie Krueger (North Middle School, Rapid City), Anne Moege (Mitchell Middle School), Lindy Obach (University Center, Sioux Falls), Al Rutherford (Little Wound High School, Pine Ridge Reservation), and Associate Professor Lee Ann Roripaugh (University of South Dakota, Vermillion). 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 Paula Burns.

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