Essay Camp: A March Write-Along!
Join over 9,000 participants for an online workshop this March 27th-31st.
What: Essay Camp: A March Write-Along
When: March 27th – March 31st, 2023
Where: Online
Who: Award-winning writer and author Summer Brennan teaches essay writing and the creative process, with thousands of writers participating.
How: Sign up for free emails from A Writer’s Notebook and follow along at home.
Why: Reconnect with your writing practice and plant the seeds for future success.
Cost: None.
Back by popular demand, the third semiannual Essay Camp is finally here! Beginning on Monday, March 27th, join thousands of other writers for a five day essay writing workshop in the write-along style.
For most writers, the ongoing process of writing is one of perpetual drift and return. We are pulled away from our writing, and then we must come back to it, over and over again. But life, the noise of the world, and the constant clamor of our own personal responsibilities can make that habit of returning very difficult indeed. It doesn’t matter how good we think we are, or could be, if or when conditions are perfect. If we cannot find paths back to writing when the going gets tough, we are lost. This habit of return is one of the most important skills that any writer can cultivate.
The primary goal of Essay Camp is to get you writing again. Or, if you already have a regular writing practice, it is to help you reach a deeper level of connection with your work. For this March 2023 session of Essay Camp, we’ll be focusing on developing and maintaining a sustainable writing habit, examining and incorporating different classic essay forms, and how to bring the raw material of our ideas forward and into the form of a finished piece.
Participants will receive a daily email with suggested writing and reading assignments, which can be tailored to fit any schedule. There are no specific time or word count requirements. Rather, each writer is encouraged to make a creative plan for the workshop that fits their own individual needs. At the end of the five days, we’ll look back at what we’ve written and spend some time (a few hours, the weekend, whatever you need) crafting at least one finished essay from the accumulated material. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done.
Essay Camp started out with around 1,000 participants in the summer of 2021. Since then, that number has grown to nearly 10,000. Some follow the assignments exactly, while others use the camaraderie of the workshop to set their own goals and forge their own path.
Beginning and veteran writers alike are all welcome, and there are no prerequisites. If you want to participate and you’re already signed up to get the free version of this newsletter, then you’re all set! If you’re not signed up and wish to do so, you can do that by clicking here:
You do not have to receive the full Writer’s Notebook newsletter to participate in Essay Camp. If you only wish to receive Essay Camp posts, please make sure to check and/or uncheck the correct boxes on your subscription management page. This can be adjusted at any time.
I hope to see you all on March 27th!
xo
Summer
Summer Brennan is an Orion Book Award Finalist and winner of the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award. She is the author of The Oyster War: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America (Counterpoint), and High Heel: An Object Lesson (Bloomsbury). Her next book, The Parisian Sphinx: A True Tale of Art and Obsession, is forthcoming from Mariner Books in spring of 2024. An exhibiting visual artist as well as a writer, she has written for, or been featured in, outlets including The Paris Review, Granta, McSweeneys, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Guardian, New York Magazine, NPR, National Geographic, Vice, Men’s Journal, Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Scientific American, and others. She was born in Northern California and lives in Paris.
Woot! I’m in!
Thank you! I’m so glad you’re doing this. It’s very generous of you.