Creative Writing Summer Camp Program on Long Island
An Outdoor Creative Writing Summer Camp Experience
Whether their preferred form is poetry, drama, short fiction, the novel, or nonfiction, our young storytellers have the opportunity to practice their writing in small, collaborative groups. Working in peaceful, open-air studios, writers build imaginative narratives and find their creative voices, while experimenting with the core elements of storytelling, including style, structure, setting, point of view, conflict, and resolution.
Under the instruction of an experienced writing educator and practicing writer, students spend their days playing writing and word games, writing, revising, sharing, collaborating, and drawing inspiration from other art forms and Usdan’s campus. All sessions culminate with a student open mic and performance as well as the development of individual student portfolios. Creative Writing students learn in open-air studios with at least one side completely open and exposed to the beauty of Usdan’s surrounding woodland campus.
SUMMER CAMP BUSING FOR Long Island, NYC, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens Kids
For over fifty years, Usdan has offered an enriching arts, music, theater, creative writing and dance summer camp experience to children all over the region, from Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn in New York City, to Port Washington and Huntington, and all over Nassau and Suffolk counties. Usdan offers busing to and from camp from convenient central pickup locations. For more information on busing, please visit our Transportation page.
Classes
Creative Writing
4-Week A
Major: Grades 4–12
MINOR - N/A
REC - N/A
4-Week B
Major: Grades 4–12
MINOR - N/A
REC - N/A
1-Week Rec
MAJOR - N/A
MINOR - N/A
REC - N/A
Our open-air writing studios provide a welcoming environment for young storytellers to write poetry, short fiction, and plays, individually and in small collaborative groups. Use your imagination and find your creative voice, while learning concrete elements of storytelling such as structure, point of view, and conflict and resolution.
Creative Writing students collaborate with peers from other artistic disciplines and use the natural environment to inspire their writing. Writers also explore the forms in which creative writing shows up in everyday life (such as journaling) and in a variety of careers (such as writing commercials and plays).
Under the instruction of an experienced writing educator and practicing writer, students spend their days considering structure and form through word games, writing, revising, sharing, and collaborating. The session culminates in a student open mic and performance as well as the development of individual student portfolios. All levels are welcome. Classes are grouped according to age division and grade.
“It encouraged me to be more creative than I thought I could be.”
—Rina
“It's a writer's dream. My ideas couldn't flow until I went there. My favorite part was the way every student and the teacher supported each other.”
—Soleil
Creative Writing: Playwriting
4-Week A
MAJOR - N/A
MINOR - N/A
REC - N/A
4-Week B
MAJOR - N/A
Minor: Grades 4-12
REC - N/A
1-Week Rec
MAJOR - N/A
MINOR - N/A
REC - N/A
In this playwriting class we will explore writing for the theater through practice and discussion. We will study the way words live on and off the page and come alive for others to experience. Writers will explore action, dialogue, and character development to deepen their understanding to playwriting. Students will examine contemporary playwrights and the plays going up at Usdan theater spaces 2025 for a cohesive outlook into the culture activating the voices of playwrights. Students will draft a short original play that will be presented at a live final reading.
Creative Writing: Spoken Word & Poetry
4-Week A
MAJOR - N/A
Minor: Grades 4-12
REC - N/A
4-Week B
MAJOR - N/A
MINOR - N/A
REC - N/A
1-Week Rec
MAJOR - N/A
MINOR - N/A
REC - N/A
There is nothing more essential than identity; that combination of personal, cultural, familial, and social values that gives each student a sense of self. In this class, poets will read and learn to appreciate the poets who really examined themselves through vulnerable, revelatory pieces of poetry as they investigate the art of the spoken word. Students will learn to identify the devices, tools, and imagery that poets invoke in personal poems, while also maintaining a detachment from the page. They will create experimental spoken word pieces to be recorded and collaborate to create an empowering slam piece that will be uploaded to Usdan’s Youtube Channel.