About

The Young Writers Workshop, hosted by the English department at Texas Tech University, is a free program intended for rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors who are passionate about writing. We want to encourage a new generation of writers to share their voices, learning from professional writers as well as award-winning TTU creative writing faculty.

Young writers in all genres and from all backgrounds are welcome; our only requirement is excellence in writing and storytelling.

How It Works

No later than June 7, 2024, young writers apply using this online form. They submit 7-10 pages of their best writing. Once their applications are evaluated and if they are accepted into the program, they begin in late May to work virtually with widely published, professional writing mentors who will provide individualized feedback and mentorship through the summer.

Then, to cap off the workshop, our young writers will come to TTU campus daily from July 22-26, 2024. Here, they will take in the college experience as they continue to work, now in person, with their mentors and their workshop classmates to hone their writing through daily workshops and readings.

At the end of the week of residency, their final writing effort will be evaluated. Those who produce the best work, as judged by writing mentors and TTU creative writing faculty, will receive one of three $500 scholarships.

Hear more about the Young Writers Workshop from Marcus Burke, director of the Young Writers Workshop, assistant professor of English at Texas Tech, and author of the novel Team Seven:

Our 2024 Mentors

Sidik Fofana

Sidik Fofana is a public school teacher in Brooklyn and graduate of NYU's MFA Creative Writing program. He is a recipient of the 2023 Whiting Award and was also named an Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction in 2018. His work has appeared in the Sewanee Review and Granta. He is the author of Stories from the Tenants Downstairs, published by Scribner in 2022. 

Jason England

Jason England is presently Assistant Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also serves on the DEI Committee for the Dean of Humanities. He graduated from Wesleyan University with high honors and three awards for fiction, earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and was selected as the Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute. He has recently contributed a number of high-profile pieces to The Chronicle of Higher Education, including "Why Was It So Easy for Jessica Krug to Fool Everyone?" and "Higher Ed's Toothless Response to the Killing of George Floyd." Jason was born and raised in New York City, where he spent his youth between a welfare hotel for the homeless in Times Square and a Harlem housing project. He has been a soda salesperson, a camp counselor, a parking lot attendant, a waiter, a bartender, a civil rights activist, a dean of college admissions, and a distinguished lecturer. His short fiction has been anthologized, and his essays on race, meritocracy, education, sports, and societal issues have appeared in various publications, including Sports Illustrated and The Root (both under the nom de plume of T.D. Williams). He is concurrently finishing his first novel and a collection of essays.

Christa Fraser

Christa Fraser is currently a lecturer in the Merritt Writing Program at UC Merced. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been a fiction fellow at both the MacDowell Colony and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Since 2014, she has been a fiction and creative nonfiction instructor for the International Writing Program's (IWP) six-week Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which typically include between 5,000 and 12,000 participants from around the globe. Through partnerships with the IWP and the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, she has also taught six-week young writers' Fiction and Creative Nonfiction courses for several U.S. Embassies. Her work has been published in The Missouri Review and Shankpainter. Currently, she is working on a novel. Born and raised in the Central Valley of California, where she has deep roots, she has also called the state's Central Sierra Foothills and the Central Coast home.

How to Apply

The Young Writers Workshop is a selective program. To apply for the 2024 workshop, please submit 7–10 pages of your best creative work along with a short video (1–3 minutes) that details who you are and why you're passionate about creative writing.

Application Deadline: June 7, 2024

Contact

For questions about the Young Writers Workshop, please contact director Marcus Burke at marcus.burke@ttu.edu.