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).

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.