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Fun Summer Writing Camps!
Scroll on down to check out new offerings and some new twists on camp programs you've loved in the past.

For the third year in a row, True Ink will offer summer writing camps for area young writers, rising 4th grade through rising 10th grade. In addition to the "sampler" camps for young writers, we're offering new opportunities in collaboration with the Black Mountain Museum and Art Center,with local artist and cartoonist Jeff Kinzel, and with performance poet and children's author extraordinaire, Allan Wolf.  As always, True Ink camps provide a supportive writing community, and are experiential with a focus on creative process, imagination and fun!
                         

   Location: All camps base out of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial site in downtown Asheville. Participants will enjoy writing in the very house that served as the basis for Look Homeward, Angel by Asheville's most famous writer. 52 North Market Street.

**  To Register: Click on      after each camp description.

** We still have some spots in Hand in Hand, Herstory and Inkbeast, register today!
 
  **   Guarantee registration with a check made payable to Janet Hurley 347 Kenilworth Road, Asheville, NC 28805.)

  
   ** Upon registration, a complete packet of information will be sent via email unless snail mail is requested.
    ** In the EXTREMELY unlikely event registration for a particular camp falls below our minimum registration, in most cases, six participants,  we reserve the right to cancel and will provide a full refund.


 

 Collage/Mind     

   

Who? Rising 8th grade-Rising 10th grade (age approximate--13-16)

            Limited to 12 participants

When: Monday, June 14-Friday, June 19

             10:00 am-3:00pm

Cost: $170

Scholarship Assistance available

Please bring:Lunch

                        Water bottle

                        Writer’s notebook

                         For use for collage work--which means they'll be modified or cut!:

                         One magazine, one book, found papers ( such as writing,   

                        letters, copies of photos etc)


  

     What happens when you take two things that seem unrelated like, say, visual art and writing, collage art and poetry, non-fiction and creativity, Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial site and mix them all up in a one week camp?

     We don’t know exactly—though we’re sure it will be something new and exciting and we're sure it will              surprise us. We’re also sure it will help all of us to enter what Beat generation novelist William S. Burroughs called “the third mind”—a mind-set that will inspire our poems, short memoir pieces, or lively personal essays.  Participants will begin the week at the BMCMAC by exploring the art of collage artist Ray Johnson, one of the seminal figures of the Pop art Era and who attended the Black Mountain college from 1945 to 1948. Tuesday through Friday will offer time at both the BMCMAC and the Wolfe Memorial, for writing, making collage art, and having great conversations about creativity. Poet Sebastian Matthews, curator of the Ray Johnson show, will take the lead on poetry, beginning with his workshop, 7 Things Ray Can Teach Us About Poetry. In the house that Asheville’s most famous novelist, Thomas Wolfe, made famous with his barely fictionalized novel Look Homeward, Angel, Janet Hurley and camp participants will explore the creative non-fiction genre—where murkiness and clarity are both inspirational.

     To cap the week, participants will share their writing and art in a public reading and artshow at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Visitor Center.

A note to parents: Please be advised that a few of the images in the Ray Johnson show are intense and provocative. You are invited to visit the show, now on display through June 12 before registering your child for this camp.


For more information about Sebastian Matthews click the poster to the left.

                                                  For more information about the Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center,

                                                  click the image to the right.


All work of Ray Johnson on this site is used by permission of The Ray Johnson Estate.

              

                                                                 

    
 



Hand in Hand: Drawing and Writing
 








Who? Rising 5th-Rising 6th grade (age approximate 9-11)
           Limited to ten participants
When: June 21-25, Monday through Friday
              9:00-4:00 p.m.
Cost: $235 ( includes a collaborative, professionally produced full color publication of participant's work)
Some scholarship assistance available.

Please bring:

              Lunch and Snacks

              Water Bottle

              Writer's notebook
              Pens/Pencils
             White index cards
             Sketch pad
             All other supplies will be provided.
    Do you love cartoons? Graphic novels? Comic books?
    If yes, then this camp is for you. We'll take a look at how drawing and words work together and then create our own graphic stories and poems.  Campers will work with cartoon artist Jeff Kinzel and writer Janet Hurley to produce a collaborative, professionally produced full color publication*  and participate in a reading/art show at the end of the week.

*Books will arrive for pick up at the Thomas Wolfe house within 5-10 days from end of camp.



 

Cool Scribbles
Who? Rising 4th-Rising 6th grade
              8 participants max
When? Please note: sessions are Tuesday-Friday                                                 
              Session I June 29- July 2 This session is now closed
              Session II July 20-July 23 Closed
              Session III July 27-July 30 Closed

               9:00 am-3:30

Cost? $135
Please Bring:
            Lunch and snacks
            Writer's Notebook
            Pens/pencils
            White index cards


    
Cool Scribbles is a fun, experiential camp for young writers. We explore "writerly habits" and exercise our right and left brains through wordplay, improv games, collage work, and getting out in the world to hunting interesting characters, stray pieces of dialog, physical details     from the mundane to the amazing, and moments we can explode into scenes or poems. In addition, the campers explore the old Kentucky home, featured in Thomas Wolfe's novel, Look Homeward Angel,  with Wolfe memorial site interpreter, Christian Dwight.  Her high energy and ever-changing stories always entertain, inform and inspire!

If that wasn't enough fun--Cool Scribbles campers will have a "Haik00tie" workshop with poet Allan Wolf. They'll experience this ancient, Japanese poetic form in a way that they never have before--and make an Allan-designed manipulative based on the old "cootie catcher" model-- but instead of catching cooties--
they'll be making up haikus!  What?! You gotta see ( and hear) it to believe it.

To learn more about Allan, click on his photo!

The camp will end on Friday afternoon with a reading and reception in the Thomas Wolfe Memorial site Visitor Center auditorium.






 Her Story                                                                                                                             Click the photos for more info on  Herstory tours
Who? Rising 7th-Rising 9th, Girls Only
             Limit 10 participants
When? Please note: session is Tuesday-Friday
                                                                    
                July 13-July16
                10-4:00
Cost: $145
Please Bring:
            Lunch and snacks
             Writer's notebook
             Pens/pencils
             White index cards 
     

         All the fun of our Cool Scribbles camp and just as experiential  but for the more mature, female writer . We'll explore the writerly life through exercises, explorations of the downtown area including a 90 minute walking tour by Asheville's Herstory. Camp participants will "hear the tales of the famous, the infamous and the unsung heroines of Asheville" and then explore their own her-stories (drawn from real life or entirely fantastic!) in a variety of genres including memoir (you are never too young to write a memoir piece!), short story, and poetry. The camp will end on Friday afternoon with a reading and reception in the Thomas Wolfe  Memorial Site Visitor Center auditorium.

 


Ink Beast
Who? Rising 7th-Rising 9th
             10 participants max
When? Please note: session is Tuesday-Friday
                July 6-July 9
                
                10-4:00
Cost: $145
Please Bring:
            Lunch and snacks
             Writer's notebook
             Pens/pencils
             White index cards 

         All the fun of our Cool Scribbles camp and just as experiential  but for the more mature writer. We'll explore the writerly life through exercises, explorations of the downtown area, and discussion. We'll exercise writerly  muscles in a variety of genres including memoir (you are never too young to write a memoir piece!), short story, and poetry.
The camp will end on Friday afternoon with a reading and reception in the Thomas Wolfe  Memorial Site Visitor Center auditorium.




Res, and the unsung heroes of
the Hear the tales of the famous,
the