North Shore Young Writers Conference

Experiment under the mentorship of accomplished writers. The conference will feature a combination of writing workshops and readings led by published mentors. This year we are pleased to offer mentorship by authors January O’Neil, Matthew Henry, and D. Eric Parkison. The workshop will culminate in a group reading of student work created during the day. Participants may experiment with different styles of creative writing, including poetry, fiction, and personal essay. Students will have an opportunity to work in small groups with each mentor over the course of the day.

Conference Details

Join us for an immersive day of intensive writing, engaging workshops, and inspirational readings led by professional, award-winning authors.

When: February 7, 2025, 8:30 – 5:00

Where: Waring School, Beverly, MA

Open to: High school students of the greater Boston area

Transportation: Waring will provide transportation to and from Beverly Depot Station for attendees taking the commuter rail. Contact Jill Sullivan at jillsullivan@waringschool.org to organize pickup and drop-off times.

Description: The North Shore Young Writers Conference is an opportunity for students to unplug from social media and online distractions to participate in a day of intensive writing with like-minded peers. Award-winning authors will mentor students, give advice, and lead workshops as well as share their own writing with the group. Specific conference details coming soon!

Cost: $50

Scholarships: Waring School is committed to making the workshop affordable for as many writers as possible. Contact Jill Sullivan for scholarship information.

Registration Form

2025 Mentors

January Gill O’Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of Glitter Road (2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. Glitter Road was a finalist for the 2024 New England Book Award. From 2012-2018, she served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Her poems and articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, American Poetry Review, The Nation, Poetry, and Sierra magazine, among others. Her poem, “At the Rededication of the Emmett Till Memorial,” was a co-winner of the 2022 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award from the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cave Canem, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O’Neil was the 2019-2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She currently serves as the 2022-2024 board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). O’Neil earned her BA from Old Dominion University and her MFA from New York University. She lives in Beverly, MA.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six poetry collections, most recently said the Frog to the scorpion (Harbor Editions, 2024). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal (publishing the best of high school writers) and an associate editor at Rise Up Review. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH’s poetry and prose has been published in Had,Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, Redivider, Terrain, and The Worcester Review, among others. MEH is a high school teacher who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.

D. Eric Parkison is the author of No Arcadia, which was released in 2020. He is the recipient of a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant in poetry. Recent work is in Swannanoa Reviewand the Belletrist. He is director of programming at the Gloucester Writers Center and lives in Lynn, MA. Find him at deparkison.com