Twelve HHHS Students Attend Young Authors Conference

Twelve Hendrick Hudson High School students, chosen by their English teachers for their passion and aptitude for writing, attended the 37th annual Youth Authors Conference at the PNW BOCES Campus in Yorktown Heights this week. The students were accompanied by Juliana Maye, a Creative Writing teacher, Literary Magazine advisor and longtime facilitator of Hen Hud’s excursion to the event.

The students spent the day indulging their creative sides and meeting other like-minded creative students from the area who were doing the same.

This is the second-annual writing conference to be held at the BOCES campus. It was the product of planning on the part of the conference coordinators: Danielle Colangelo, Jennifer DelVecchio, Diana Sarna and Fred Ende. The event had been held for several decades on the campus of Westchester Community College, then was held virtually for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Young Authors Conference took on a different shape last year and continued in its new format, which allows students to attend writing workshops in various locations across the campus. Workshops are spread out over two buildings and several outside tents, Maye said.

The students had the unique opportunity to work with professional writers, editors and educators from diverse fields who shared their experience and skills with the participants. These presenters hosted activities that encouraged students to write, create, share and discuss their writing with other devoted high school writers from various districts across the Lower Hudson Valley.

The 2024 Young Authors Conference was entitled, “Getting to the Heart of It.” The theme for this year’s event provided a day that, in the words of conference coordinators, “celebrates each student’s passion and commitment to writing.”

“Based on the feedback from this year’s Hen Hud student attendees, the workshops indeed did just that,” Maye said.