Annual workshop aims to convert writing from a solo endeavor to a communal experience.

By Patricia Valdata

The stereotype of the poet or novelist working in unappreciated solitude got a workout recently at the Carbondale campus of Southern Illinois University. The 9th annual Young Writers Workshop brought 30 high-school students onto the campus for four intense days of poetry and fiction writing, critiques, panels and readings.

The workshop, held this summer, is one of many ways associate professor and poet Allison Joseph tries to convert writing from a solo endeavor to a communal experience.

“The focus is not just on how to become a writer; most of the kids we see are very much writers in their own minds,” she says. “[The question is] how do you feed that fire? How do you stay enthusiastic about what you do?” Judging by the number of students who return to the workshop year after year, Joseph’s approach is working. Some of the students come from schools with well-developed creative writing programs, while others attend rural schools with little funding for arts programs. Joseph, who holds the Judge Williams Holmes Cook Endowed Professorship in English at SIU, sends information to English teachers at every high school in Illinois, as well as to many in surrounding states. She says such a wide net helps bring in students from a variety of ethnicities and economic backgrounds.

Tuition for the workshop is $250, which includes lodging, meals and all materials. But that amount can be out of reach for many high school students, prompting Joseph to seek scholarship donations to keep down costs. All of the scholarships are based on the quality of the writing samples students submit with their workshop applications.

“Our scholarships are not based on financial need. I don’t want to look at any tax returns; that seems really intrusive,” she says. “We had such generous donors this year that we had five full scholarships.”