Inkstains Celebrates 10 Years of Summer Writing Camps

Kim Pavlock TC ‘92

While the EMWP celebrates 20 years, Inkstains – formerly called Write-Link – will be celebrating its tenth year of offering summer writing camps for middle and high school students in Southeastern Michigan! In the last four years alone, we have had more than 200 teens and pre-teens gather on the campus of Eastern Michigan University to immerse themselves in the joy and freedom of writing for fun.



This year, the middle school camp (for students entering grades 6-8 in the fall of 2013) will be held the week of July 8-12. The high school camp (for students entering grades 9-12) will be held the week of July 15-19. Camp tuition for the entire week is $200 and includes creative writing activities, collaboration and fun for every student, as well as a hard-bound writing journal, t-shirt, and copy of the camp anthology with select writings from the week. A limited number of partial scholarships are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

 
Of course, we’re a little partial to how wonderful this experience is for young writers, but don’t take our word for it; read on for a sampling of what the campers themselves have to say:

Inkstains was great! I really liked being outdoors a lot! And I liked how we were always with different people and different sized groups!
~Anne, an Inkstains middle school camper

I really loved camp, and will (hopefully) return next summer. One of my favorite things was that we were given many topics. I liked that we had many choices as far as what we want to write about and what we wanted to continue writing, instead of being forced to write about cheesy topics. I also liked that we were encouraged to share our stories, without being forced, and that reading them aloud wasn't at all stressful. I really can't think of anything that I didn't like; camp was so amazing!
~Rachel, an Inkstains high school camper

Being able to read my work [aloud] at the end of the week is wonderful. Although I am always shy and nervous right before reading, I love walking to the center of the room and seeing that all of my Inkstains friends and my family are there supporting my writing. It has also helped to improve my public speaking skills. I love the great variety of writing prompts provided to us throughout the week. Whenever there's a prompt that I'm not particularly inspired by, the next one will be completely different and I'm always guaranteed to find something to get my creative juices flowing.
~Shelby, an Inkstains high school camper

I was a camper all four years of high school and enjoyed every minute of it. THANKS to you and to everyone else that made my experiences so memorable. A big plus about camp this past summer was all the people there. The people running the camp who all of the campers genuinely felt cared about by, the fellow campers who made the atmosphere so fun, exciting and safe, and the people on and around campus who made for great writing prompts. Another plus was the ability to have our work published in an anthology. The anthology is a great way to see everyone else's writing and to keep it in a professional looking book for years to come.
~Ellen, an Inkstains high school camper

We encourage you to tell your students about Inkstains. For more information, please click here for our 2013 brochure or contact Kim Pavlock at kpavlock@emich.edu .