We offer free evening and weekend workshops designed to foster creativity, strengthen writing skills, and provide students with a forum for executing projects they might not otherwise have the support to undertake. Workshops range from the playful to the practical, and all are taught by volunteer writers, artists, educators, and publishing professionals.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to increased demand, enrollment for workshops are now determined by lottery. Once you have signed up for a workshop, please look for an email from workshops@826nyc.org, verifying that we have received your request. If you have not heard from us after 48 hours, feel free to call.
Our workshops are limited enrollment and often generate wait lists. With this in mind, please only sign up if you can make every session of a workshop. Thank you!
Who's Who Among Monsters, 2005
2 Sunday sessions: November 13, 20
12-2pm
Taught by 826NYC
Ages 6-9, limited to 8 students
Celebrate the year in monstrosity! Imagine the most imbecilic or fabricate the funkiest Monsters in this annual review! We will be honoring the cream of the crop in the field. Students will create profiles for creatures of their own design. Each profile will include likes, dislikes, a biography, and special facts or monster trivia. When the roster is complete, awards and honors will be bestowed to the scariest, grossest, or weirdest characters to come out of the deliberations. Come join us as we reminisce over which monsters made the year memorable.
Sticky Stories: Caramel Apples Come to Life
1 Sunday session: October 30
12-2pm
Taught by Krista Overby & Liz Coen
Ages 6-8, limited to 10 students
Do you like to sit at the dinner table turning your spaghetti and meatballs into boiling lava pits or your french fries into intrepid explorers? Do your parents tell you to stop playing with your food and start eating your vegetables? If so, then this workshop is for you!
We are looking for creative kids who can turn any meal into a blockbuster. We will start by making a favorite autumn treat, caramel apples. Then we will bring those apples to life and put into words a story that will knock your socks off.
Write! Act! Direct! Become a Triple Threat
4 Wednesday sessions: October 19, 26, November 2, 9
6-8pm
Taught by Miriam Siddiq
Ages 14 and up, limited to 12 students
Are you ready to handle the fast-paced, creative atmosphere of guerrilla theatre? This class offers a chance to learn how to develop and stage short scenes with nothing but a pen, some paper, and your brain. Students try different aspects of storytelling through writing, directing, and performing their own skits. We will focus on quality, not quantity. The end result: a short skit that packs a dramatic punch.
The Thing in the Forest: A Horror Fiction Writing Workshop
4 Tuesday sessions: October 4, 11, 18, 25
6-8pm
Taught by Adrian Van Young
Ages 10-14, limited to 10 students
What does the witch see through her one good eye? Where do ghosts go in the morning? How did the fishman get his scales? Just what is that thing in the forest? Now, it's up to you. Write a bonechilling tale just in time for Halloween and share it with your friends and neighbors.
Did a Dragon Throw Up on His Shoes? Fun with Photography and Storytelling
3 Sunday sessions: September 18, 25, October 2
12-2pm
Taught by Johanna Gohmann
Ages 8-10, limited to 8 students
Did you ever see a photograph of someone laughing, and wonder, what on earth was so funny? Did someone just fall down? Tell a joke? Or ask them if they'd like to buy a bag of dirty toucan beaks? Have you ever seen a picture of a little boy crying, and tried to imagine what brought on the tears? Did a dragon just throw up on his new shoes? Did aliens just steal his lunch money?
All pictures have a story to tell. In this class we will have fun letting photographs inspire new stories, and letting these stories in turn inspire new photographs. Armed with a pen, a paper, and a disposable camera, each student will have the chance to explore the link between photography and story-telling. Our finished product will be turned into a lovely book, worthy of any Brooklyn coffeetable
Your First Galactic Empire
4 Wednesday sessions: September 14, 21, 28, October 5
6-8pm
Taught by Chris Zic
Ages 12-16, limited to 10 students
Sure, your personal shuttle may have a killer paint-job, but does it carry enough fuel to break out of the dense atmosphere of your home planet? How long will it take your Interstellar Fleet to reach that renegade star system 100 light years away? Do you believe in hyperspace?
Science Fiction may be all about letting your imagination run free, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any rules. Many of the best ideas in sci-fi were discovered by writers who were trying to come to terms with real issues that make the prospect of space travel and colonization so challenging.
This workshop will help students create their own science fiction universes by discussing these basic principles. Knowing them will not only help you develop more convincing alien worlds, cultures and technologies, it can also lead you to ideas that are stranger than you would ever have imagined on your own.
