** NEW: SPACE LIMITED – Each school can only register a max of 10 students, register early to ensure your space, it will be first-come first-served! Make sure you register separately for each day if you plan on attending both days! **
This October, the Adirondack Center for Writing will present the 21st annual High School Writing Retreat at Paul Smith’s College.
Register for one or two days of writing workshops, epic performances, new friends and fellow writers, and a meet & greet with our guest writers. It’s a unique and impactful experience to include on college applications. Open to any high school students and classes, including homeschool students. No experience necessary, and no fee to attend.
Students will enjoy performances and learn to supercharge their writing with literary rockstar instructors:
Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow and MacDowell Arts Advocacy Awardee, is a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Browne received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Carolyn Moore Writing Residency, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, & UCross. Browne’s books include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for a play by Steppenwolf Theater), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne currently tours Chrome Valley (highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times) and is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. Mahogany L. Browne holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded by Marymount Manhattan College, and is the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center.
Noah Arhm Choi is the author of CUT TO BLOOM, the winner of the 2019 Write Bloody Prize. They received a MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and their work appears in Apogee, The Rumpus, Split this Rock and elsewhere. Noah was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022, shortlisted for the Poetry International Prize, and received the 2021 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize, alongside fellowships from Kundiman, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Adirondack Center for Writing. A Lambda Literary Writer in Schools, they have worked as an educator in New York City since 2013, and currently work as an Equity Senior Program Associate at NYU Metro Center.
Jive Poetic is a writer, organizer, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. He received his BA in Media Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and his MFA in Writing and Activism from Pratt Institute. In 2017 Jive was the first recipient of the John Morning Award for Art and Service. He is the founder of Insurgent Poets Society, Carnival Slam: Cultural Exchange, and the co-founder of the Brooklyn Poetry Slam. His work has been showcased on season four of TVONE’s Lexus Verses and Flow, PBS News Hour, and BET. International recognition and support for his work has come from the British Arts Council; US Embassies in Australia, Brazil, and Poland; and the Minister Of Culture in Antigua and Barbuda. Currently, Jive is the Friday night poetry slam curator and host at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café. When he is not on tour, he teaches poetry and hip – hop workshops to at risk youth in New York City and the surrounding area.
Since 2005, the Adirondack Center for Writing has hosted its annual High School Writing Retreat, and each year brings in more talented local teen writers.
Thanks to Cloudsplitter Foundation, Charles R. Wood Foundation, Lake Placid Education Fund, and Saranac Lake Public School Education Fund for supporting the 2025 High School Writing Retreat!
