Summer 2025!

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Description of Program
Course Descriptions
Registration Information
Basic Requirement for Participation

Description of Program

In-person, remote, academic, screenplays, science fiction, creative writing – we’ve got courses for everyone! You will be able to explore your interests, discover your strengths and take writing risks that you are not usually able to in a traditional classroom setting. While our goal is to have fun with writing all these course are designed to get you writing because the only way to become a better writer is to write!

Please email bawp@berkeley.edu if you would like to be placed on a waitlist for any of our full courses.

Starting the week of June 9, 2025

• In-Person: From Draft to Chapbook: Generating and Revising Your Creative Writing (2 Weeks)
• In-Person: Scenes by Teens (1 Week)
• Virtual course: Introduction to Creative Writing (3 Weeks)

Starting the week of June 16, 2025

Starting the week of June 23, 2025

• In-Person: College Essay Writing June (1 Week)
• Virtual course: Introduction to Journalism (1 Week)

Starting the week of July 7, 2025

• In-person: Multimedia Storytelling: Creative Writing & Technology (3 Weeks)
• In-person: Science Fiction Writing: Chart Your Course (2 Weeks)
• Virtual course: Advanced Creative Writing (3 Weeks)
• Virtual course: Explore Your Voice, Your Relationships, and Your Life in Verse! (1 Week)

Starting the week of July 14, 2025

• In-person: College Essay Writing July (1 Week)

Starting the week of July 21, 2025

• In-person: Dream-Inspired Creative Writing (2 Weeks)

Starting the week of July 28, 2025

• In-person: The Art of Argument: A process of paying attention (1 Week)

2025 Course Descriptions

From Draft to Chapbook: Generating and Revising Your Creative Writing
Register for this course
June 9 – 20, 2025 (2 Weeks – No Class 6/19)
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
9th – 12th Graders
In-person at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Way West Building)
$600.00
Instructor: Lisa Ludden

Open to creative writers in all genres and all levels, the first week of this workshop will focus on generating new work. Prompts, creative writing samples, and craft strategies will be provided for students to explore daily. The second week will focus on revision strategies, conversations about sequencing, and working toward the creation of a chapbook. Students will have opportunities to share their work and receive feedback from the instructor throughout the course.

Lisa Ludden Perry is the author of the poetry chapbook, Palebound, (Flutter Press, 2017), and winner of the 2024 Michael Rubin Work-in-Progress award for her manuscript In the Body it Nests. Recent poems have appeared in Taos Journal of Poetry, Colorado Review, and The Dodge (Best of the Net nominee). She lives in the Bay Area with her family and teaches high school English. A proud BAWP alumna, she is grateful for the 2024 ISI community who reminded her why she loves to be in the classroom in the first place.

Scenes by Teens
Register for this course
June 9 – 13, 2025 (1 Week)
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
9th – 12th Graders
In-person at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Way West Building)
$400.00
Instructor: John Levine

Have an idea for a movie or a play? Don’t have an idea, but want a chance to find one? This course focuses on the building blocks of dramatic writing — character, plot, dialogue, and conflict. Through writing exercises and feedback sessions, you’ll craft and develop a series of scenes and get started on your own scripts. At the end of the week-long workshop, we’ll have an informal reading of your work. No previous dramatic writing experience necessary.

John Levine teaches writing and public speaking at UC Berkeley. He has also taught writing workshops for high school students in California and China. An award-winning playwright, John has had plays produced throughout the U.S., as well as in Canada, Mexico, India, Australia, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and the U.K.

Introduction to Creative Writing
Register for this course
June 9 – 27, 2025 (3 Weeks – No Class 6/19)
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm PST
9th – 12th Grades
Virtual course
$725.00
Instructor: Emily Wilkinson

Do you have stories to tell? Characters in your head? A notebook full of scenes? This summer, join other creative writers in reading short stories and creative nonfiction that breaks the rules, and discover how to write your own story. In this course you’ll have the opportunity to hack the techniques published writers use to tell their stories, like building unforgettable characters, unexpected scenes, and beautiful detail, and practice using these techniques yourself. We’ll spend time reading, writing, and workshopping together.

Emily Wilkinson (she/they) is an educator and author from Northern California who celebrates sher 7th summer with BayWP as a writing instructor. Since 2015, Emily has worked with various Writing Project sites nationwide, collaborating with teachers and students in physical and digital classrooms. In addition to teaching a wide variety of course subjects and levels—ranging from 6th grade English to AP World History and English teaching methods—Emily spends sher time researching and writing about LGBTQIA+ identities in the classroom and the emotional aspects of teaching and learning. Sher first book, based on sher experiences as an urban teacher in a rural Northern Californian classroom, will be published by Routledge later this year. In sher personal time, Emily can often be found on a granite slope or sand dune, trying not to fall as shey highlights a golden line in a work of literature or creative non-fiction.

College Essay Writing (June Class)
Register for this course
June 23 – 27, 2025 (1 Week)
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
11th and 12th graders only
In-person at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Way West Building)
$400.00
Instructor: Eric Gustafson and Karla Brundage

Good storytelling is a way to make your writing more engaging. In the course, you will first hone this craft by writing a profile article. We will begin by workshopping questions that elicit vivid storytelling and thoughtful reflection from your subject. Beginning with an anecdotal lead, the article you write will be focused on developing your subject as a character. With the second writing piece, the tables will be turned. You will become the subject of the article. Conveying who you are as a person is what college admission officers are looking for in an essay. This course will help you succeed in doing that. (Current UC/Common App prompts will be used.)

Introduction to Journalism
Register for this course
June 23 – 27, 2025 (1 Week)
9:00 am – 12:00 pm PST
9th – 12th Grades Only
Virtual course
$400.00
Instructor: Brian Barr

Journalism is changing. No longer confined to a newsroom, journalists report from cafes, street corners, and sports venues and all over the world. Hone your skills in this class so that you are ready to report on the go. In this course we will explore the fundamentals of writing a strong article for the public eye. This includes developing reporting skills by learning to write breaking and hard news stories, personality profiles, and opinion pieces, such as columns, editorials and reviews.

Brian Barr has taught at California High School in San Ramon for the past 26 years. He teaches English 12 Science Fiction/Fantasy and runs the school’s newspaper and mock trial programs. He also coaches the men’s and women’s golf teams at California High School. Before becoming a teacher, Brian was a professional journalist for nine years, working as a reporter and sports editor for several daily newspapers in the East Bay and San Joaquin Valley. Brian earned an undergraduate degree in political science from UC San Diego in 1992. He is a 1988 graduate of Central Catholic High School in Modesto.

Multimedia Storytelling: Creative Writing & Technology
Register for this course
July 7 – 25, 2025 (3 Weeks)
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
9th – 12th Graders
In-person at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Way West Building)
$750.00
Instructor: Marna Blanchard

Course Description: Want to create writing that’s amplified beyond the page and captivates a digital audience? This three-week workshop explores the exciting intersection of creative writing and digital media. You’ll draft a diverse portfolio of new pieces, including nonfiction scripts, creative writing (fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction), and storyboards ready to adapt into video essays, mini docs, or micro cinema. Discover innovative techniques, from using the Daily Write web app to charge your creativity, to ethically harnessing the power of generative AI for writing feedback and research. Learn how to leverage free media resources to craft compelling writing that resonates with a digital audience.

Science Fiction Writing: Star One
Register for this course
July 7 – 18, 2025 (2 Weeks)
9:30 am – 12:30 pm PST
9th – 12th Graders
In-person at 2121 Berkeley Way, Berkeley
$600.00
Instructor: TR Amsler

Science fiction is pretty amazing. You’ve got space ships, computers embedded in your brain, life on meteorites, and maybe even aliens. Climate fiction, with its flooded cities and fallen governments, can be cool in an apocalyptic, ‘let’s try to avoid that’ kind of way. Science Fiction is often the escape hatch a reader and writer are looking for. But what if these genres also reflect our hopes and fears? What if they actually help us better understand race, migration, climate change and politics? From Afro-futurism to zombies, we’ll have a chance to write about what matters to us, and what matters to our future.

T.R. Amsler (he/him) has taught, coached and learned from young people in the Bay Area for over 20 years. He’s especially loved teaching narrative, fiction, journalism, debate and poetry ever since receiving his MA in education from UC Berkeley. Besides being a passionate reader, he loves to spend time outdoors on his bike, at a baseball field or with his kids. He currently teaches at June Jordan School for Equity on the ancestral and current land of the Raymatush Ohlone, third planet of the Solar System and currently called San Francisco.

Advanced Creative Writing
Register for this course
July 7 – 25, 2025 (3 Weeks)
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm PST
9th – 12th Grades
Virtual course
$725.00
Instructor: Emily Wilkinson

Advanced Creative Writing is for teen writers ready to cultivate a small library of poetry, prose, fiction and memoir in three weeks of summer. This intensive course seeks to hone students’ existing understanding of topic, plot, theme, characterization, genre, suspense, and tone into greater mastery upon the published page through writing mentorship. In addition to a variety of editing and revision techniques, students will learn how to find their footing in various speeds of pacing, provide psychological insight into characters’ lives, bring life into dull prose through intimate details, prune unwieldy sentences, sacrifice staid ideas, and fight all things dear with nuance. By the end of this camp, students will publish at least one polished anthology piece and seed their future writing careers with inspiration and new skills.

Emily Wilkinson (she/they) is an educator and author from Northern California who celebrates sher 8th summer with BAWP as a writing instructor. Since 2015, Emily has worked with various Writing Project sites nationwide, collaborating with teachers and students in physical and digital classrooms. In addition to teaching a wide variety of course subjects and levels—ranging from 6th grade English to AP World History and English teaching methods—Emily spends sher time researching and writing about LGBTQIA+ identities in the classroom and the emotional aspects of teaching and learning. Sher first book, based on sher experiences as an urban teacher in a rural Northern Californian classroom, will be published by Routledge later this year. In sher personal time, Emily can often be found on a granite slope or sand dune, trying not to fall as shey highlights a golden line in a work of literature or creative non-fiction.

Poetry as (People) Power: Explore Your Voice, Your Relationships and Your Life in Verse!
Register for this course
July 7 – 11, 2025 (1 Week)
12:00 pm – 3:00 pm PST
9th – 12th Graders
Virtual course
$400.00
Instructor: Mahru Elahi

Using the poet Chen Chen’s focus on writing about friends and relationships as a starting point, this week-long course will offer multiple ways to generate poetry, perform poetry and publish poetry that reflects your emerging voice, your identities and the power of verse to build community and change the world as we know it.

A former poet in the schools, funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission, Mahru Elahi has been supporting youth poets to strengthen their voices, publish, and perform, for decades. Mahru is an alumna of the Voices of Our Nations Writing Workshop, and a recipient of a Hedgebrook Residency. Mahru Elahi’s writing has appeared in magazines, journals, and the anthology Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora.

College Essay Writing (July Class)
Register for this course – FULL
July 14 – 18, 2025 (1 Week)
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
11th and 12th graders only
In-person at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Way West Building)
$400.00
Instructor: Eric Gustafson

Good storytelling is a way to make your writing more engaging. In the course, you will first hone this craft by writing a profile article. We will begin by workshopping questions that elicit vivid storytelling and thoughtful reflection from your subject. Beginning with an anecdotal lead, the article you write will be focused on developing your subject as a character. With the second writing piece, the tables will be turned. You will become the subject of the article. Conveying who you are as a person is what college admission officers are looking for in an essay. This course will help you succeed in doing that. (Current UC/Common App prompts will be used.)

Eric Gustafson feels like he has been fortunate enough to have had two dream jobs. When he was hired as the assistant editor of Sports Car International magazine in 2000, his high school fantasy of becoming an automotive journalist had come true. He loved it. About ten years in, however, something began to feel amiss. Right out of college he had worked as a substitute teacher, then taught English in Dresden, Germany. Now, he found himself longing for the classroom and the satisfaction he felt from helping young people. In 2014, he quit his editing job and got a credential. He eventually became a journalism and American Literature teacher at Lowell High School. He loves it. BAWP has given him another outlet to share his passion for writing.

Dream-Inspired Creative Writing
Register for this course
July 21 – August 1, 2025 (2 Weeks)
10:00 am – 1:00 pm PST
9th – 12th Graders
In-person at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Way West Building)
$600.00
Instructor: Meres-Sia Gabriel

What do Twilight, Stuart Little and Frankenstein have in common? They were all inspired by dreams! If you enjoy dreaming and recounting your dreams in vivid detail, this may be the course for you. In this course we will explore dream journaling, creative dreaming, and writing inspired by dreams. We will gain inspiration from poems, short stories, essays, art, conversation, and films. You don’t have to share any confidential dreams to benefit from this class. There will be guidelines to keep the space safe and fun. Just come with a joy for dreaming and writing.

Meres-Sia Gabriel is the bestselling author of I Twirl in the Smoke and a dream enthusiast. When she is not writing , performing, or teaching, she is dreaming.

The Art of Argument: A process of paying attention
Register for this course – FULL
July 28 – August 1, 2025 (1 Week)
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
9th – 12th Graders
In-person at UC Berkeley (Berkeley Way West Building)
$400.00
Instructor: Nichole Vaughan

Being able to create an effective argument is a nuanced practice. It requires knowledge, empathy, and acuity. We’ll practice and hone our use of these skills to effectively create a claim and address counterclaims, both written and spoken.

Nichole Vaughan is a high school English teacher in Redwood City at Sequoia High School. She has experience teaching IB English Language and Literature and AP Language. Education and language pop the batteries in her back and get her going. She loves participating in the process of learning and is driven by curiosity. She likes to bring literature to life by connecting books to pop culture and art. She was a BAWP fellow in 2021 and is excited to be a part of the summer programs.

Registration Information

Using the appropriate link below, submit participant information and then select the course or courses you would like your writer to join. Sibling discounts (-$50 for each additional child after the first registration) will be automatically deducted before checking out.

• Registration for in-person courses
• Registration for virtual courses

If you encounter any issues with the registration process please try using a different browser (Chrome is preferred). If that doesn’t help, email us at bawp@berkeley.edu.