Irvine Young Writers Summer Camp
Dan Paley offers creative writing workshops for Irvine-area students. Please fill out the interest form using the button below. Space is limited.
Courses
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The narrative course covers topics like structure, plot, compelling openings, character development, descriptive language, scene setting, and voice across fiction and nonfiction. The goal of the course is to develop storytelling skills. Students read model texts and write their own stories with peer and instructor feedback.
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This course covers one of the oldest forms of writing—the art of rumination through the structure of the essay. Students learn how to choose a subject, develop a thesis, and present evidence to support their point of view. This is an especially important skill for students preparing for high school and working on college applications.
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In the research course, students carry out a project on a subject of their choosing. They learn how to identify reliable sources, how to organize pertinent facts, how to evaluate data, and how to put it all together in a compelling visual presentation. The skills learned here translate to the classroom and the boardroom.
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Good writing requires good reading. Students will read model texts in the areas of fiction, nonfiction, essays, and poems/lyrics. The goal of the course is to develop a passion for 1) reading for pleasure and 2) reading for information, while simultaneously learning to 3) read like a writer, to recognize the techniques writers use with an eye to incorporating those tools in their own writing.
2026 Summer Schedule
Details
Students — Rising 5th - 12th graders who are proficient in reading and writing
Location — In Irvine at locations to be determined
Tuition — $600 (sibling / multisession discount $575) including materials and snacks. (Writers do a lot of snacking.)
Enrollment — Each session is capped at 10 students
About Dan
Dan Paley is a bestselling and award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction books for children. He has written across several genres, including features for Ranger Rick, poetry for Ladybug, op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, essays for The Science Writer, and humor for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. He previously worked in strategic communications at UC Irvine.
Dan earned an M.A. in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), and a founding board member of Readers to Dreamers. He is also a contributing author for McGraw Hill's Emerge! literacy program for preK-12 schools. Dan is a frequent presenter in IUSD, where his three children attend school, and where Dan volunteers as a judge in the annual PTA Reflections Arts program. Shhh!