Benji Boyd, Sophomore
On Friday, the third of February – yes, the one with record temperatures that had everyone over forty reminiscing about the blizzard of ‘78 – the fires were stoked in the homey halls of the Waring School as students and visitors alike ran for the doors. As the winds raged outside, a melting pot of representatives from schools all over the region huddled together in front of space heaters, steaming cups of tea and (allegedly) decaffeinated coffee in hand, and found warmth in each other’s company. Despite the wide diversity of students at Waring that day, companionship could easily be found in the two things they all had in common: a love for writing, and an inability to feel their toes.
The North Shore Young Writers’ Conference has been held at the Waring School annually for over thirty years, though 2023 was its first year back since the pandemic. The Waring staff, as well as guest writers Bryan Parys, Jonathan Bennett Bonilla, Daisy Novoa Vásquez, and Jean Dany Joachim, made the conference’s grand comeback a hit.
Due to the three year hiatus, the students who showed up on Friday morning had no idea what they were getting into. Over the next two days, the attendees were separated into cohorts headed by the visiting writers and instructed during guided writing sessions. Using prompts inspired by various poems written by the guests, students were invited to write their own short pieces and share amongst themselves.
In between cohort sessions, students came together to discuss their respective activities and listen to poetry readings from the visiting writers. The first to share was Daisy Novoa Vásquez, a Chilean-Ecuadorian poet and translator teaching Spanish at Harvard. She read several of her poems in Spanish and had the translation read in English. Beyond poetry, Daisy gave the conference a deep insight into the life of a bilingual poet, and the difficulties of translation. Adding on to her point, the next reading was from guests Jonathan Bennet Bonilla, a bilingual author, translator, and editor, and Jean Dany Joachim, a Haitian poet and playwright teaching in Cambridge, from their collaborative book of poetry written in both English and Creole. After each reading, the writers invited the students to partake in a writing exercise. Jonathan and Jean Dany really hammered home how difficult translation is by having the bilingual or language-learning students in the audience help them translate a single verse from hundreds in their book.
Saturday was even colder than the day before, but that did not stop students from braving the frost and sacrificing a day of their weekend to return for the conference’s second half. Bryan Parys, a memoirist and nonfiction poet, shared excerpts from his book Wake, Sleeper, introducing the conference attendees to the world of genre hybridity.
At the end of the second day, students were given time to hone their favorite pieces from the workshops and read to their peers. Each student went home with a printed compilation of attendee works, as well as newfound friendships and connections to a community of young writers.
Thanks to the combination of a relaxed and non-stressful (utterly unschoollike) atmosphere, great instruction from published authors, and the opportunity to make friends and connect with kids from other schools, the Waring North Shore Young Writers’ Conference has earned itself many promises of attendance in future years, and hopefully the reputation to attract some new faces next February.