CampWrite UNC inspires creativity and writing skills in local students

With summer right around the corner, local middle and high school students are getting ready for CampWrite UNC, a free, two-week day camp for aspiring authors and casual writers.

Since its founding in 2011, CampWrite UNC has helped hundreds of students improve their writing in a fun, nonjudgmental environment.

UNC senior and former CampWrite president Larissa Wood said the camp’s most important goal is to allow the campers to express themselves in creative ways.

“I think CampWrite is really cool because all of these local middle school and high school students who do like to write, and might not know that many other people that like to write in their own schools, get to come together and have a community that really supports their creative quirks and interests,” she said.

Senior Samuel Silverstein, who ran the 2017 camp, said a normal day at CampWrite begins with a short lesson from one of the counselors, followed by small group writing workshops, lunch and finally, the students’ favorite activity: reading their stories in front of all the campers.

“Any of the campers can share anything they’ve written, and a lot of campers really love that, they love to get up in front of everyone and share their work,” Silverstein said.

CampWrite is so popular with students that they attend year after year, and sometimes even become camp counselors when they graduate.

“We’ve had a couple of campers from last year who have not graduated high school, who are going to graduate high school in the next couple months, who are going to come back as counselors this year,” Silverstein said. “In fact, there are some local, previous campers who have been accepted to UNC and are now in leadership positions or are leading the process of planning camp.” 

UNC senior and CampWrite counselor Erin Scannell said counselors should encourage younger students to keep writing even as they get older.

“I think it’s really, really important to provide a space for creative outlets, especially for middle and high schoolers, and to show them that creativity like that doesn’t have to end when you graduate from middle school or when you graduate from high school, that you can continue to do it while you’re in college and that it’s a worthy activity to engage in,” she said.

Wood said most of the funding for CampWrite comes from fundraisers by the student organization, but that they are looking for new sources of funding this year to be able to publish each campers’ favorite work in a small booklet. 

“That, I would argue, is our most expensive project, and that is what in past years sometimes hasn’t happened — sometimes it’s been a PDF version of that compilation just because of the expense of the book,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out this year if we can maybe get some funding through the creative writing department or some other avenue on campus so we can create hard-copy books for this year’s camp.”

Applications for this summer's camp are due Sunday, April 8, and are available on the camp's website.

@marcoquiroz10

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