The Shared Worlds SF/F Teen Writing Camp is a summer camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where up to 50 teen writers come from around the world, including Japan, Indonesia, and Germany, to learn, practice, and hone their writing skills and creativity, guided and instructed by top professional writers. The camp’s assistant director is the fabulous Jeff VanderMeer, and guest writers for this year’s camp include New York Times bestsellers Julianna Baggott, Naomi Novik, and Tobias Buckell, as well as Prix Award Winner Karin Lowachee and Hugo Award winner Ann VanderMeer.
At Shared Worlds, students form teams in classrooms to build entire fantasy or science fictional worlds in the first week and then write stories in those worlds the second week. They also get to attend author readings, take field-trips to bookstores, and create videos about their imaginary worlds.
The camp is supported by Amazon.com but is funded in large part by donations which help to ensure that attending the Shared Worlds Teen Writing Camp can be a possibility for all registered students, no matter what their financial need—which brings us to the “Critter Map.”
With website created by filmmaker and writer Gregory Norman Bossert, artwork by Jeremy Zerfoss, and compiled and edited by Therese Goulding, it includes story contributions from writers including Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Scott Westerfeld, Gene Wolfe, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and even yours truly. So head on over to check out the Critter Map. Click on a critter and read its story. And please donate what you can to this great cause!
