ABOUT the SUMMER WORKSHOPS

The In-Person, socially-distanced Workshops take place at Bright Hill Literary Center’s Education Wing, 94 Church Street, Treadwell, NY. Space is limited, so early registration is advised (summer registration begins April 19 with a final deadline June 1; registration forms will be available on BHLC’s website by APRIL 19. All of the Bertha Rogers-led Bright Hill Literary Workshops for Kids include writing and visual arts and in-corporate science and math for projects; we believe in STEAM.

THE WORKSHOPS – Bright Hill will provide morning and afternoon snacks, but kids should bring their own bag lunches. CHILDREN ages 6 – 18 (1st grade – 12th grade) are welcome (Young Collectors Club and Legends of the Stars and Planets are both limited to students ages 6 – 14). The fee for each five-day literary workshop is valued at between $300 and $600, but Bright Hill charges tri-county youth $160 and out-of-area students $250. Full and partial scholarships are available to permanent residents of Delaware and Otsego Counties (Delaware Academy/Delhi Central School students receive full scholarships provided by the Abraham Kellogg Education Fund). Registration is limited to 16 students.

BRIGHT HILL LITERARY WORKSHOPS FOR KIDS & TEENS

A WORLD OF WINDY & WILD WEATHER!

Taught by Bertha Rogers

APRIL 11 – 15 (BOCES SPRING BREAK)

Ages 6 – 14:  9 am – 2:30 pm, 5 days – Kids will learn about local, national, and international weather and changes in the weather.  They will write poems and stories and riddles and build dioramas, sculptures, and artist books.  On Friday at 1 pm, the kids will present an exhibit of their completed projects and read from their work for parents and guardians.

The In-Person Workshops take place from 9 am – 2:30 pm at Bright Hill Literary Center’s Education Wing, 94 Church Street, Treadwell, NY. Space is limited, so early registration is advised. (Spring registration begins Feb. 7 with a final deadline of Feb. 28; summer registration begins April 1with a final deadline of April 28). Bright Hill will provide morning and afternoon snacks, but kids should bring their own bag lunches. Children must wear masks indoors as per current New York State guidelines and regulations – they will be socially distanced during workshops. Children ages 6 – 14 (first grade through 8th grade) are welcome. The workshops are designed and led by Bertha Rogers, master teaching artist and founding director of Bright Hill. The fee for each five-day workshop is valued at $250, but cost to tri-county area residents is only $160 thanks to generous support of our funders. Full and partial scholarships are available to permanent residents of Delaware and Otsego Counties (Delaware Academy/Delhi Central School students receive full scholarships, thanks to Abraham Kellogg Educational Fund). All of Bertha Rogers’s-led Bright Hill Literary Workshops for Kids include writing and visual arts and incorporate science and math for projects; we believe in STEAM.

Bertha Rogers co-founded with Ernest M. Fishman Bright Hill Press & Literary Center in 1992 and the Bright Hill Literary Workshops for Kids Program in 1993. A Master Teaching Artist, Rogers has presented programs in schools, libraries, and community venues since 1975, including NYC’s Teachers & Writers Collaborative and the Catskills DCMO and ONC BOCES Arts in Education Program. Rogers has served as judge for local, regional, and NY state NEA Poetry Out Loud Contests and is a member of the selection committee for the NY Writers Hall of Fame. Each BH Literary Workshop for Kids program includes 5 intensive days that begin at 9 am and end at 2:30 pm; after lunch on the last day, the kids present their poems and/or riddles in the Bright Hill Library to an audience of family and friends, after which they exhibit their completed projects in the Education Wing. During each day’s session, the big kids and interns work with the younger kids as they write their poems, riddles, stories, and essays, and as they complete their visual works: artist books, papier mache sculptures, and performance pieces. Rogers, a poet and visual artist, has been awarded residency fellowships to artist colonies, among them MacDowell, Millay, Saltonstall, and Hawthornden Intl’l Writing Retreat in Scotland. Her visual works have been shown in hundreds of juried and solo exhibits throughout the US and Europe and are collected in the Harry Ransom Archive at the University of Texas. Rogers’s poems appear in journals and anthologies and the collections Wild, Again (Salmon, 2019); Heart Turned Back (Salmon, 2010); Even the Hemlock (Six Swans, 2005); The Fourth Beast (Snark, 2004); A House of Corners (Three Conditions, 2000); Sleeper, You Wake (Mellen, 1991); and What Want Brings: New & Selected Poems (Salmon, 2022). Her translation of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon epic, was published in 2000 (Birch Brook); her translation of the riddle-poems from the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book, Uncommon Creatures, was published in 2019 (Six Swans).

This workshop runs Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 2:30 PM

SPRING SESSION: APRIL 11 – 15 (During BOCES Spring Break)

Ages 6 – 14

Cost to tri-county area students only: $160

Cost to out of town students: $250

Full scholarships available to Delaware Academy Students with thanks to the AL Kellogg Foundation

To register, fill out registration form below, email to info@brighthillpress.org, and purchase ticket on our website.

Or mail registration form to Bright Hill Press at 94 Church St, Treadwell, NY 13846 with payment included.

AFTER THE BEGINNING: WHAT’S NEXT?

Taught by Georgia Popoff

JUNE 6 – JULY 25 – POETRY WORKSHOP – ALL AGES

Participants in this 8-week session will examine their work through a series of lenses, each leading to further development and revision. As each element of literary devices and considerations is introduced, poems will transform and reveal. In the spirit of discovery and collaborative growth, there will be an opportunity to workshop some of the work as a “best test.” We will also examine poets whose work exemplify any of the various lenses we will use to answer three basic questions: What? Then What? and So What? as we employ poetic craft to bring a poem to its fullest potential. For even the seasoned poet, these considerations strengthen the keen eye needed in effective revision.

COST TO YOU (THANKS TO OUR FUNDERS): $250

ACTUAL COST: $600

Scholarships available to those in need.

Georgia A. Popoff, Syracuse, NY, is the YMCA of CNY’s Downtown Writers Center Workshops Coordinator and faculty member, arts-in-education specialist, editor/book coach, former Comstock Review senior editor, coeditor of an essay anthology on Gwendolyn Brooks, and coauthor of a book on effectively teaching poetry in K-12 classrooms. Her fourth poetry collection is Psychometry (Tiger Bark Press, 2019).

TOADS & FROGS & SNAKES OH MY!

Taught by Bertha Rogers

JUNE 27 – JULY 1

BRIGHT HILL LITERARY WORKSHOPS FOR KIDS & TEENS – SUMMER 1

Ages 6 – 14:  9 am – 2:30 pm, 5 days – Among the many animals that live near and around us are toads and frogs and snakes.  Kids will learn which ones are easily found as well as those we hardly ever see.  They will write poems and stories and riddles and build dioramas, sculptures, and artist books.  On Friday at 1 pm, the kids will present an exhibit of their completed projects and read from their work for parents and guardians.

This workshop runs Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 2:30 PM

SUMMER SESSION: June 27 – July 1, Ages 6 – 14

Cost to tri-county area students only: $160

Cost to out of town students: $250

Full scholarships available to Delaware Academy Students with thanks to the AL Kellogg Foundation

BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES, BAFFLING BATS

Taught by Bertha Rogers

AUGUST 8 – 12

BRIGHT HILL LITERARY WORKSHOPS FOR KIDS & TEENS – SUMMER II

Ages 6 – 14:

9 am – 2:30pm, 5 days – There are many butterflies in the skies in the Catskills, and we’re lucky to see those regularly.  Bats tend to stay out of sight, but the kids will learn where they live, what they eat, and how they sleep.  They will write poems and stories and riddles and build dioramas, sculptures, and artist books.  On Friday at 1 pm, the kids will present an exhibit of their completed projects and read from their work for parents and guardians.

This workshop runs Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 2:30 PM

SUMMER II SESSION: August 8 – 12, Ages 6 – 14

Cost to you only: $160 (for tri-county area students)

Cost to out of town students: $250

Full scholarships available to Delaware Academy Students with thanks to the AL Kellogg Foundation