Hawthornden Brooklyn invites applications from creative high school students who currently attend New York City public schools to participate in our Summer 2026 Young Writers’ Workshop. In three separate ten-day workshops, students will have the opportunity to sharpen their skills in either fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction at the Hawthornden Brooklyn house in Ditmas Park, a space specially designed for writers. 

Workshops will include guided instruction, assigned reading, field trips, mini lessons, collaboration, as well as the time and space to generate new work. Class size is limited to 10 students per workshop, and lunch will be provided. Each student will receive a stipend of $1000 and have access to quiet writing spaces and an elaborate library. For students interested in creative writing, this is a great chance to shoot your shot and become part of Hawthornden’s literary community. 

Deadline to Apply: April 3rd, 2026
Deadline to Submit a Recommendation Form: April 3rd, 2026

Poetry Workshop July 6-17

Participants will learn to craft their own poetry by studying line breaks, rhythms, metaphors, persona, and other creative strategies. Through model texts and guided prompts, as well as individual conferences, students will create poems for a chapbook and a public reading. This course will include class discussion, sharing work and constructive feedback, as well as time for students to generate new poems. The emphasis as a class will be on deep thinking, discovering poems, and crafting participants’ subjects into their strongest work.

Teacher: Dan Kraines

Dan Kraines is a queer poet of Ukrainian, Bolivian, and Viennese heritage. His first book, Strap, is out now. He has taught creative writing for high schoolers and New York public school undergraduates.

Fiction Workshop July 20-31

This course explores the craft of fiction writing through reading, discussion, personal conferences, and exercises involving prompts that will allow students to expand their imaginations and learn the art of narrative. Participants will learn to craft their own fiction manuscripts through the study of character, conflict, point-of-view, and narrative voice. Through the course of reading model texts and craft discussions, guided prompts, conferences, participants will work toward finishing a creative piece to be included in an anthology and public reading.

Teacher: Mohammad Hakima

Mohammad Hakima is an NYC-based author and educator. He moved to the United States in 1998 from Tehran, Iran, and started writing after learning to speak English. His work has been published in or is forthcoming from Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, Black Warrior Review, Boulevard, Passages North, Popula, and other publications. He is the winner of Boulevard magazine's 2024 Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers, and he is a 2024 Jack Hazard Fellow. His writing has received support from Vermont Studio Center, the Kenyon Writers Workshop, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. His stories have been twice a Finalist and once Shortlisted for the William Wisdom Faulkner prize. He has an MFA in fiction from The New School, and he’s a high school special education teacher. 

Creative Nonfiction Workshop August 3-14

How might we choose what questions about ourselves we’d like to explore? How can we communicate our truths? And how do we shape our stories, with heart and clarity, to invite in our readers? In this workshop, participants will approach creative nonfiction as a source of connection and creativity, and learn to craft their own personal essays through the study of setting, description, symbols, voice, motif, and theme. Together, the group will read and discuss a range of model texts, identify and evaluate aspects of craft, generate new writing in response to an array of prompts, and refine one creative nonfiction essay through workshop, conferences, and revision. Participants’ final creative pieces will be celebrated both in a live reading and in a printed anthology.

Teacher: Emily Brandt

Emily Brandt is the author of the poetry collection Falsehood, as well as three chapbooks, with decades of experience writing, teaching, and supporting creative community. She's a co-founding editor of No, Dear, curator of the LINEAGE reading series at Wendy’s Subway, and member of the video art collaborative Temp.Files. She’s of Sicilian, Polish & Ukrainian descent, and lives in Brooklyn.

Eligibility guidelines

• You are eligible to apply only if you are currently enrolled in a New York City public high school and you are entering 10th, 11th, or 12th grade. 

• Students entering 9th grade and graduating seniors are not eligible. 

• If you do not attend high school in New York City, you are not eligible.

• If you attended the Young Writers Workshop in 2025, you cannot apply to the same workshop you did last year. For example, if you took Poetry last summer, you cannot apply for Poetry again now – you can only apply for either Fiction or Creative Nonfiction.

Policies and Requirements

• Students are allowed to miss one class day without penalty. Any additional missed days will result in a reduction of the stipend. 

• Hawthornden Brooklyn will not issue the stipend until the last day of each session. 

To apply, please click here

To recommend an applicant, please click here

Both the application form and recommender form must be submitted by 5PM on Friday, April 3. 

Click here for Hawthornden Brooklyn Summer 2026: Writing Residency for Teachers