We’ve been offering writing programs for teens since 2000. In 2016 we added a summer camp for middle-schoolers and in 2024 we added writing programs in our Children’s Garden for ages 3-12. Find out more details for each age group below.
Check out some recent writing from our students.
High Schoolers
Teen Writing Workshops
The Laura (Riding) Jackson Teen Writing Workshops, partially funded through a grant from Quail Valley Charities, are free, interactive writing workshops offered throughout the school year at our Writing Center and are open to teens ages 13-19. Topics change from year to year, but include: Editing, Comics, Shakespeare, YA Novel Writing, and Screenwriting. Each of these dynamic workshops gives students opportunities to not only explore but also obtain valuable feedback on their creative writing.
Online Teen Writing Workshops
During the COVID pandemic, we developed six online workshops that are still available to students!
Teen Fellow Award and Scholarship
The Laura (Riding) Jackson Teen Writing Fellowship is a prestigious award that recognizes students who demonstrate dedication and commitment to the development of their literary skills and talents.
All IRC college-bound graduating seniors who complete the Teen Writing Fellowship are automatically entered into a pool to win one of two $1000 scholarships LRJF awards in May each year. No further application process is required.
Teens Listen
LRJF is helping teens learn the process of interviewing members of the community and documenting their stories.
Middle Schoolers
Write in the Middle
Write in the Middle is an annual middle school summer camp. Every participant becomes a published writer! Registration opens in February for camp in June each year.
Middle School Writing Group
New in 2025: now we have an opportunity for middle schoolers to write with us during the school year, too!
Preschoolers and Elementary
Kids Write Outside
Combining the need to get younger children out from behind screens and into the out-of-doors, in 2024 we added new programs for kids in age groups 2-5 years old; 6-8 years old; and 9-12 years old. These outdoor programs take place in our Children’s Garden and all will include writing (or writing readiness, in the youngest group).
Recent Writings from our Students
Poems from the Gallery at Windsor Event, April 16, 2025
To see the artwork referred to below, go to: https://www.windsorflorida.com/exhibition/christopher-le-brun-and-charlotte-verity/
Phases of the Sun
by Juliana Ritacco, age 7
Inspired by the painting Phases of the Sun II
All the fire colors get
Mixed together
And yellow turns into popcorn
She is scared of scorpions
And she is stuck on an island
But the sun is beautiful
The camp fire is
Orange red and yellow
The moon and sun are combined
She closes her eyes and sees the sun
The sun is square
She camps for the night
Painter’s Hand, Nature’s Hand
By Ava Giang, age 9
Inspired by the painting Glance
Left hand right hand,
Painter’s hand, nature’s hand.
Lines and squares
And all the petals
Show brightly in the sun.
None look sad
As all are happy
Some who are orange
May go in storage.
Some may twist and turn,
Maybe have burns,
But all may be happy.
Calm swaying
Like they’re playing.
Some singing as
They show bright colors,
While some turn away to gloom.
Happy or sad,
They all make you glad.
The Glance
by Castiel Ritacco, age 10
Inspired by the painting Glance
The flower starts as a seed.
Then explodes in a burst.
Light streams out
The ground shakes,
The ground pushes.
Reds blues greens and yellows.
The flower brings life that is beautiful
And ugly.
Light streams in
The ground is calm.
The ground pulls
Grays and purples.
The Church and the Vine
by Luis Giang, age 12
Inspired by the painting My Nest
I block the view of a nearby church
As I dangle and climb up the wall.
I twist and turn my way to the top.
And know I can take over the top
And can’t be removed as I climb.
The church is mine.
That is not enough.
I dangle and slowly make my way to
Another wall.
I continue forever making my dominance
Known to all.
Spring’s Revelation
by Aurora White, age 13
Inspired by the paintng Small Seasons, Spring 2023
Ah as us seasons in all our glory
Pass the sense of our story
As Summer creeps near
With a graceful glare
I am afraid it has come to this
Who is the very very best season
Of them all?
Well I shall tell you
Summer, as it goes, has many shades
But oh that summer sun
It only strengthens
Weakening thy love for the season
Autumn is next
Beloved by all
But why love a season
That makes everything fall?
Winter, you say?
Goodness No!
For it makes everything cold!
And covered in snow!
No brutal winter will not do!
All the trees are dead!
It is just too cold I fear!
Winter is harsh words
Like a shadow creeping near
But have no fear
For I – the Spring- is here!
I am not hot
I do not make anything fall
And I am not cold at all!
I am the warmth of the sun
The days you run to and fro
The season of new growth
As the battle of winter
Is won
I am the victor
Watch the rain come again
The season of life
I am the calmness
Of a gentle breeze
I am the very very best season
Of them all
I am Spring.
Reflections
by Ella Kilman, age 17
Inspired by the painting Ponder (Plumbago)
The shades of the sky dance between reflections and reality.
Revealing only what we wish to see,
And reflecting the reality of what we fail to confront ourselves.
Except, the shades of the sky metamorphosize just as we do.
Constantly reflecting,
Like a prism,
The nature of our reality.
The flowers, the stems, the buds,
The space between them
And the lack thereof
The shades of the sky dance between reflections and reality,
And so do we.
Buds
by Ella Kilman, age 17
Inspired by the painting Buds
Rose, by my name, by my art, by my soul.
Bud, by my youth, by my hope, by my wonder.
But can a rose bud and bloom?
Is it possible to exist in the in-between?
In the linger moments between winter and spring?
Perhaps we need to appreciate the transition
And savor the anticipation of the bloom.
Perhaps that would make the bloom even brighter, and the bud softer.
Intoxicated
by Tamiya Pringle-Thompson, age 17
Inspired by the painting Phases of the Sun II
6 months, I have been sober.
I have been sober for six months.
In these 6 months, I haven’t thought of it much.
I go to work, I read in the library, I avoid the restaurants and the clubs, and the beach because temptation is a killer
and any reminder of it is a temptation.
For 6 months, I have been sober.
For six months I haven’t had any, not a single bit.
I met a stranger in the library, six months and 1 day.
We get acquainted and we walk in the sun, we chat, and something in their eyes, in their smile, in their singular dimple and in the way the sun is so warm, it all feels familiar.
Two days later we grab a coffee,
six months and 3 days,
and they ask me to dinner, two days from tomorrow.
I leave my house for dinner,
six months and 6 six days,
and we sit at a small table, at a cozy ocean side restaurant.
We make small talk over appetizers, discuss how beautiful the beach is and how nice it is to sit in the warmth of the sun.
I’ve been sober for six months and six days and for six months and six days I avoided the sun.
The sun reminds me too much of it,
The warmth of it,
and temptation is a killer.
We leave the small table at the cozy oceanside restaurant
not being the small talk type.
We go dancing and they pull me in close, close enough that I can feel their eyelashes on mine and suddenly I smell you on their breath
Six months six days and twelve hours I have been sober
but next thing I know
I’m on the bathroom floor
in a puddle of myself.
The stranger is nowhere to be found.
I called you last night
after six months six days and 15 hours
and asked if we could start again.
That’s the thing about it
about you
I know you can kill me and yet I crave you anyway.
You feel warm and comforting like the sun and the beach
But if I stick around for too long, I know you’ll burn me
the way that you always do.
I had been sober for six months. Six months, 6 days, and 15 hours.
I had been sober, and I had every intention of staying that way, I swear.
But all it took was one taste of you on a stranger’s lips and suddenly I’m yours again.
It’s an exhausting cycle, abstaining from and
eventually relapsing on you,
the way that I always do.
Any temptation, any reminder and I’m, again, intoxicated by you.
Love is a heck of a drug.