What: Essay Camp: A March Write-Along
When: Monday March 23rd – Friday March 27th, 2026.
Where: Online
Who: Award-winning writer and author Summer Brennan teaches essay writing and the creative process, with thousands of writers participating. This session, author and Paris Review columnist Katy Kelleher joins as contributing essays editor.
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: Free, or a suggested $32 donation.
Details: Join thousands of other writers for a five-day essay writing workshop in the write-along style. The ongoing process of writing is one of perpetual drift and return. We are pulled away from our writing practice and then we come back, over and over. Life, the noise of the world, and the constant clamor of our own personal responsibilities can make writing difficult. This habit of return is one of the most important skills that any writer can cultivate, whether we do it daily or only once every few years.
The primary goal of Essay Camp, first held in the summer of 2021, is simply to get you writing again. If you’re already writing, it can also help you to connect with your established practice in a deeper way.
Participants receive daily emails with suggested writing and reading assignments that can be tailored to fit any schedule. There are no specific time or word-count requirements. 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 crafting at least one finished essay or other piece of writing. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done.
Emails will go out every morning at 6:00 a.m. Central European Time, so be aware that those living in the Americas will be receiving them the night before.
If you want to participate and you’re already signed up to get the free or paid version of this newsletter, then you’re all set! If you’re not signed up and wish to do so, you can sign up below.
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See you in March!
A note on the illustration: I have long been inspired by the art of Amy Friend. She is an award-winning Canadian artist working with photography, installation, and community-based collaborations, “exploring personal and collective histories, time, land-memory, oceans, dust, and our connections to the universe.” Read more about her work on her website. Please follow her or purchase a print if interested!
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Hi Summer—I’ll do the Essay Camp anyway but wondering….is it the same or similar to the one we did two months or so ago. I absolutely loved it 😻
Hi Summer,
I've done EC before and will do it again--got a published article out of it once. Posting here since I don't have your email: I'm intrigued by the year-long mentorship program but have an ms. of short stories (one that won an award, another that was a semi-finalist for ASF"s Halifax prize) that is very close to finished so maybe don't need the whole program, more global feedback and shepherding through the submitting/publishing process. Any chance of a reduced fee or an hourly? Please let me know and accept my condolences on the deaths of your parents. So painful to lose them so close together. My email is apedersen815@hotmail.com if you wish to reply privately.