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YouthWrite River Valley Experience 2022

$635.00 CAD

July 3 - July 8, 2022

Day Camp For Ages 8-13
A unique opportunity for kids to expand their writing horizons. Campers will receive guidance from published authors and learn writing techniques for specific genres.

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$635 Base Price
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+ $NaN Participant Full Legal Name (+ Preferred name)
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$635 Subtotal
       

River Valley Experience 2022

Day Program with option to stay overnight on Thursday, July 7.

  • Ages 8-13
  • July 3rd - July 8th, 2022
  • 8:30am-4:30pm
  • Bennett Centre, Edmonton, Alberta
  • Tuition - two options
  1. Daycamp only - $635.00
  2. Overnight Camp - $675.00

YouthWrite Fees Include

8 hours of daily instruction/activity led by highly qualified instructional and supervisory staff, supervised lunch and break times. All supplies are provided as are daily lunches and snacks (and Friday breakfast for the Thursday night overnighters). Each participant is required to dress for the weather, bring PPE, indoor and outdoor shoes, and will receive a complimentary copy of YouthWrite: the Magazine.

For those of you new to YouthWrite:

Registration steps continue after registration on this site. After you complete the registration on this site, we ask that you proceed to Campfax, a secure camp database and:

  • fill in important details
  • provide a letter of reference from a teacher/mentor
  • provide the answers to the four YouthWrite questions
  • provide a short sample of writing

You are not fully registered until all steps are completed.


Please note

All fees include $100 non-refundable fee.  No refunds will be made if registration is cancelled after June 22, 2022.

A full refund will be possible in the event an applicant is not accepted into the program or if COVID restrictions require that we cancel or reconfigure camp. YouthWrite Society Canada reserves the right to cancel courses and restrict enrollment. Courses, instructors and supervisors may be subject to change.




Guest Instructors



YOUTHWRITE INSTRUCTORS: THE CREAM OF THE CROP!


Throughout YouthWrite's history, we have prided ourselves on the calibre of our fine instructors.


YouthWrite invites superbly talented and reputable instructors who represent the many facets of the performing, visual, musical, dance, film, and written arts. 


More Amazing Instructors TBA!




Natasha 2022

 Natasha Deen  Twitter


Bio

Natasha Deen is a Guyanese-Canadian author who's published over forty works for kids, teens, and adults. Her works include In the Key of Nira Ghani, which won the 2020 Amy Mathers Teen Book Award. Natasha’s forthcoming novel, The Signs and Wonders of Tuna Rashad, is a CBC Top 14 Canadian YA books to watch for in spring 2022 and a JLG Gold Standard Selection. When she’s not writing, she teaches Introduction to Children’s Writing with the University of Toronto SCS and spends an inordinate amount of time trying to convince her pets that she’s the boss of the house. Visit Natasha at www.natashadeen.com 


Course

Writing (S)Mash UP! - Is your writing feeling a little weak? Does your description barely have enough strength to lift a page? Then this is the session for you! Using awesome stuff like music, pictures—and even everyday things like colour—we’ll tighten your writing, power up your descriptive core, and hone your story into a lean, mean, writing machine!





Thomas

 Thomas Trofimuk 


Bio

Thomas Trofimuk is an Edmonton writer who does not come lightly to the blank page. He has four novels out in the world (The 52nd Poem, Doubting Yourself to the Bone, Waiting for Columbus, and This is All a Lie) and a fifth (The Elephant on Karlův Bridge) coming out in Fall 2022. He’s a long-time teacher at YouthWrite, who's obsessed with fonts, who knows exactly what he’s feeling at all times and wants you to know it, and who's a world-famous-spasmodic-dancer who, without a doubt, trained with the Bolshoi Ballet Company.


Course

Imagine This (or What to do if you wake up at 3 a.m. and there's a five-ton elephant standing in your bedroom)
Spark your creativity with daily prompts, and playing around, and practice. We will, in fact, imagine there is a five-ton elephant standing in our bedroom at three o’clock in the morning, and it smells like peanuts. The question is, what happens next? Will you call the police? Invite the elephant into the kitchen for a snack? Or have a conversation (because it is a talking elephant!!!)?






 Elena (Eli) Belyea


Bio

Elena (Eli) Belyea, is an arts educator and Artistic Director of Tiny Bear Jaws, a queer playwright, performer, and producer. They were born and raised in Amiskwaciwaskahikan on Treaty 6 territory and have had work produced across Turtle Island and internationally (including Austria, New York, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Quebec, and Wells) and received numerous awards. She's also half of queer sketch duo Gender? I Hardly Know Them (on Tiktok + Instagram at @genderihardlyknowthem).


Course

TBA - More info soon!







 Marcus Fung


Bio

Marcus Fung, is a Canadian-born Chinese man who's ventured down the road of sharing his love for the inclusive, expressive arts. A long-time children's music and movement educator, and a community drum-circle facilitator, Marcus can often be found in the community facilitating storytelling, song, movement and rhythm. Right now, he enjoys honing his live-looping/beatmaking craft as well as making music for meditation. In his spare time, he trains in self-defence MMA (mixed martial arts and Brazilian ju-jitsu).


Course

Rhythm, Movement, Words, and the Creative Flow - Explore your natural gifts of rhythm, movement, and wordplay to get into a creative flow. Together, create soundscapes using drumming, singing, speaking, rhyming and your bodies together in dynamic ways that you might not have imagined. Celebrate a whole-brain-and-body approach to creating and creativity as well as the community of people you create with. Develop a rhythmic vocabulary and your confidence improvising using instruments, your bodies and your voices. Not just a class for people who feel musical: find the music that lives inside everyone.





The Amazing Supers

Handpicked and multi-talented, YouthWrite Supers are the centre of our camps. As artists, teachers and mentors, they bring the X-Factor to YouthWrite.


More Super Supers are TBA soon!


Keltie Squires

Aajah Sauter


Aajah Sauter is thrilled to be back for yet another year! She's a third-year journalism student at MacEwan University pursuing a career in radio/video journalism and documentary producing. She has a passion for storytelling and amplifying unheard and marginalized voices in her community. Before writing came along, dance was a first love: she's trained in ballet, jazz, and many Hip Hop styles and has been competing for thirteen years. Dance and writing have been incredible creative outlets. Aajah is excited to be back as a Super and surrounded by so many bright and innovative souls!.



Andy

Andraya Diogo   


is a stage designer/manager, writer and mediocre skateboarder. As a longtime
camper and member of SWYC (Edmonton's Spoken Word Youth Choir), Andy has spent her years with YouthWrite focusing
on poetry, spoken word and creative nonfiction. Outside of YouthWrite, Andy is a
student at the University of Alberta heading into her third year in BFA Theatre
Production. She’s worked with Citadel Theatre and Freewill Shakespeare, most
notably. Andy can hardly wait to spend her summer with YouthWrite and meet this
year’s campers!



Mark

Mark Guerrero


Mark Guerrero is thrilled to be joining you all for a fun and exciting summer full of imaginative freedom and play! Mark is an actor and singer from Grande Prairie, AB. He is currently a student in the University of Alberta's BFA Acting program. His experience in that program so far has been inspiring, transformative, and has fueled his love for classical text – including Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov. Before starting his career as an actor, Mark graduated from the University of Alberta with a sociology degree and worked in program evaluation and data analysis. Mark also loves to sing and trains classically as a baritone. He’s uber-excited to be Gail’s favourite.



Keltie

Keltie Squires - Lead Super


Keltie Squires is a professional copywriter and marketer in Edmonton, Alberta. Her journey with YouthWrite started in 2019 as an office bee and Super. She moonlights as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitor and instructor. She would like to take this time to confirm that the rumors are in fact true – she is Gail's favourite




River Valley Experience Coordinator

Marla Albiston

has been involved with YouthWrite for approximately 15 years…she can’t remember the exact number, because she’s been having so much fun! She completed her BEd degree at the U of A, and since then has had the wonderful opportunity to apply her love of education with her passion for movement, teaching Dance at various schools with EPSB. She also works as a freelance dance teacher/choreographer, dances with the local Contemporary company ViVA Dance, and performs in aerial circus with Firefly Theatre and Circus. Marla is beyond excited for the magic that once again will be taking place at YouthWrite this summer and to work with Gail who loves her best!



YouthWrite Director- Coordinator

Gail Sidonie Sobat


is a multi-award-winning teacher and author, with twelve books for children, teens and adults, and a number of educational and academic articles. A Global News Woman of Vision and an Arts and Culture Citation Award recipient, she is the YouthWrite creator/ coordinator, an international presenter, an instructor in the professional writing program at MacEwan University and in the Faculty of Education at U of A. Gail was The Writers’ Union of Canada Regional Representative for Alberta, NWT and Nunavut, and writer in residence with the Metro Edmonton Federation of Libraries. 


She has moved forty times in her life from Badlands to Siksika Nation Reserve to hideous suburbs to Istanbul to the Sunshine Coast to her writer’s garret in a century-old temperamental house. She adores all of her Supers & Coordinators equally, and loves YouthWrite like a madwoman!



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