About
At Lincoln Park, Young writers..
…hone their craft in a challenging, yet supportive, environment filled with great works, guest authors, one-of-a-kind classes, and constant surprises.
Our Mission
Writing is the single most important skill students can possess in today’s information-based economy. Yet a New York Times story from 2017 noted that “three-quarters of both 12th and 8th graders lack proficiency in writing.” Test scores and evidence from around the nation show it’s a skill that is on the decline, and that’s something we hope to change.
The Writing and Publishing Department at Lincoln Park helps students develop and perfect this invaluable ability, in a program that includes an award-winning literary journal, a journalism track, and the only high school student-run small press in America. Some Writing and Publishing majors want to be poets or screenwriters; some want to work in the publishing industry; and some want to be doctors, public policymakers or scientific researchers. All of them will leave Lincoln Park equipped to excel in a wide variety of careers.
The Writing and Publishing Department is one of the original five arts departments at Lincoln Park. First known as the Literary Arts Department, its curriculum was, and still is, based on classes from the Creative Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University, which boasts one of the country’s finest college writing departments. Poet, author and screenwriter Jim Daniels, CMU’s Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English, was an original member of Lincoln Park’s national advisory board, and acclaimed novelist Sarah Elaine Smith (Marilou Is Everywhere) helped develop the first classes taught in the Literary Arts Department.
Over the years, the Writing and Publishing Department has grown. It now has its own middle school program, and its students have not just met with, but have collaborated, with some of the country’s finest literary minds. Yet it remains, first and foremost, what it originally set out to be: a true community of writers, where students will be both challenged and supported daily in an environment rich with original thought and possibility.
For more information about us, visit our How to Apply page, or check us out on the lppacs.org website.