How do you get kids to put down the smartphone and write? Page 15 in downtown Orlando has been helping kids put pen to paper and get their writing published for 10 years.
The program’s summer camps are growing, and there’s a new after school writing camp kicking off with kids from Parramore’s brand new pre-K through 8th grade school.
Julia Young, the founder and executive director of Page 15, and Paul Driscoll, the educational programs director joined Intersection to talk about Page 15.
Young said the summer camp is a week by week program and continues to grow every year.
"They come in to learn how to write a book, write different parts of the story, character development, and at the end of the week they go home with their own published book," she said.
Driscoll said Page 15 tries to work towards their interests rather than having them just write a certain way.
"The kids are coming to us, they're all each unique thinkers, they're all dynamic and interesting and some of them really all write well like pros, others of them think visually so we try to adapt programming so we can suite those needs," Driscoll said.
Page 15's writing camp begins again in June 2018 and also has a poetry summer camp along with other in-school programs.