All of our workshops take place at one of three locations:
Todos nuestros talleres ocurren a la una de tres lugares:

• 826LA West: 685 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
• The UCLA Armand Hammer Museum: 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, CA 90024
• 826LA East: 1714 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, CA 90026

To receive the latest workshop news, please sign up for our workshop announcement email list.

Please note: a deposit of $25 is required to reserve one space in a workshop. Your deposit check will be destroyed upon completion of the workshop.
Atención: se requiera un depósito de $25 para reservar un espacio en un taller. Al terminar el taller, se destruirá su cheque del depósito.

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826LA Summer Camp presents
Jon Scieszka Fan Club
Taught by 826LA staff
Ages 8 – 11
Fridays, June 20 – June 27 and July 11 – August 29
3:00 pm - 4:20 pm
This workshop takes place at 826LA West
685 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Students will be reading a selection of donated books from The Time Warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka. After immersing themselves in the crazy, period-leaping adventures of the three protagonists, participants will be ready to delve into discussions that will provide insight and enhance understanding of the stories and enjoyment of reading.

826LA Summer Camp presents
Summer Screenwriting
Taught by 826LA staff
Ages 11 – 14
Tuesdays through Thursdays, July 22 – August 14
3:00 pm - 4:45 pm
This workshop takes place at 826LA East
1714 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, CA 90026

Hollywood's newest crop of screenwriters will make their debut this summer! Students will learn from professionals how to write their own screenplays, which will then be shot and edited into original short films, ending in a cinematic screening.

826LA Summer Camp presents
News and Policy Forum
Taught by 826LA staff
Ages 14 – 18
Mondays through Fridays, July 28 – August 8
4:00 pm - 5:15 pm
This workshop takes place at 826LA West
685 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

High school students will be doing a whirlwind survey of politics, foreign affairs, and controversial issues to figure out where they stand. Learning to write persuasively and provocatively about the positions they hold is the ultimate goal.

Monster Safari
Taught by Alex Riguero
Ages 8 – 12
Saturday, August 2, 2008
10:30 am – 12:30 pm
This workshop takes place at 826LA West
685 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

You are an intrepid explorer uncovering the secret lives of monsters—how they move, what they eat, what they do for fun, who their natural enemies in the wild are—and you will present your discoveries to the Society of Distinguished Explorers and Naturalists. With a little help from a crack team of "research assistants," you will prepare your paper and visual aids (i.e. illustrations and models) for your brief talk.

What do monsters do in their downtime? Do they hang out at the mall or live in the Serengeti (or in another ecological zone entirely)? How do monsters behave when they think that no one's looking?

Alex Riguero received a BA in Archaeological Studies from Yale University. After spending four years traveling the world, having adventures and excavating everything from colonial villages in Connecticut to Viking farm houses in Denmark to Neolithic Chinese burials, she decided to move to Los Angeles to study the relationship between art, architecture, and urbanism in nineteenth-century London. Her parents don't get it either.

Sitting on Your Own Supreme Court
Mystery in [insert your country's name here]
Taught by Alexandra D'Italia
Ages 10 – 14
Two Saturdays: August 9 and August 16, 2008
10:30 am – 12:30 pm
This workshop takes place at 826LA East
1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, CA 90026

You and your fellow classmates, seeking to forge new lives outside the US, have sailed to a distant land and founded your own country. Naturally, you have placed yourself on the Supreme Court. Soon, you learn that some of the other students have performed acts of questionable legality.

It is now your job to determine whether or not crimes were commited, what exactly those crimes were, and why they were crimes. During this workshop's first session, you and your fellow justices will decide the case and lay out a new set of laws. And later, after peace has returned to your new home, you decide to retire from the bench and become a mystery writer—during the second workshop session, you will use your judicial decisions as a basis for your story, which will hopefully become the legal thriller of the year.

Alexandra D'Italia loves figuring things out, then writing stories about them; she believes brilliance happens at the cross between analytical and creative thinking. A former criminal defense attorney, she is a part-time professor at Southwestern Law School. She writes fiction, too. Her fiction and nonfiction publication credits include Moxie, Art Times, SF Weekly, and Defenstration.

Five-Minute Sitcoms
Taught by Pamela Ribon
Ages 8–12
Sunday, August 10, 2008
12:00–2:00pm
This workshop takes place at the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024

Attention funny people and jokesters: Your writing skills are needed for the Five-Minute Sitcom Workshop, where you will make your very own cast of wacky characters come to life. This workshop will be lead by Pamela Ribon, who has worked with some very funny people. Are you next?

Pamela Ribon is a TV writer, bestselling novelist, performer, and professional silly person. She's currently writing for ABC's Samantha Who?, and is hard at work on her third novel. When she's not updating her personal site at pamie.com, she's running her charity—DeweyDonationSystem.org—a website that helps raise funds and book donations for struggling library systems.

The Heroes' Journey
Taught by Arrowyn Ambrose and Laura Veeder
Ages 8 – 12
Two Saturdays: August 23 and August 30, 2008
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
This workshop takes place at 826LA East
1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, CA 90026

In this workshop, which explores the work of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, students will explore ancient myths and archetypes, and learn about their continuing presence and importance in the modern world. With new knowledge of the hero myth, each student will look inward and discover a personal Heroes' Journey—a call to adventure, a road of trials, and a return—then write about and illustrate that journey.

Arrowyn Ambrose is currently the Curriculum and Training Director at the Young Storytellers Foundation, and Laura Veeder is the Artistic Director of the Young Heroes Project.