Austin Bat Cave hosts a number of half-day creative writing summer camps all over the city. Summer camps explore genres like Fan-Fiction, Poetry Writing, Horror Writing, Songwriting, and more. Whatever your interests, we have a camp for you!
If each of our students donated $100 this summer, then Austin Bat Cave will be able to reach more students than ever before. For 15 years, Austin Bat Cave has provided free creative writing programs for Central Texas youth. This summer, we’re asking for a suggested donation in order to attend our week-long summer camps. Your donation will go towards supplies, teacher stipends, and other resources ABC needs in order to keep amplifying young voices. ABC’s actual cost is over $1,000 per camp, but we know the benefit of helping students tell their stories and sharing them with the world is priceless.
COVID POLICY: Austin Bat Cave is closely following the Austin Public Health data and safety guidelines for mitigating the spread of Covid-19 in the community. To ensure that our programs are accessible for all students, including those who are high-risk, we are making the wearing of masks voluntary for students and instructors while Travis County is in a Low Community Level, but we are strongly encouraging students and instructors to wear masks, and disposable masks will be provided as needed. However, Austin Bat Cave reserves the right to change this policy at any time should cases of Covid-19 rise in the greater Austin area or should Travis County move to a higher stage of Covid-19 risk-based guidelines.

Half-Day Summer Camps
Below are our 2022 Summer Camps!

3rd–5th Grade
Horror Comedy
June 19th-23rd, 9am–12pm each day; In-person at the
Is laughter the cure for everything? Is joy truly stronger than fear? We invite you to overcome what scares you by laughing about it! Join us as we explore horror comedy where ghosts don’t boo, they lol and monsters might just be misunderstood and moody, not deadly. This camp is great for those who think the line between horror and hilarious should be blurred more often!

8th-12th Grade
Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
June 5th-9th; 1pm–4pm each day; In-person at the Bat Cave (address provided upon registration)
What if society was overtaken by mushroom infections? What would be the everyday, when people have to start over for themselves and establish new norms? What does the future look like when you’ve reimagined it? Join us as we write about a post-apocalyptic life through a speculative fiction lens and explore the relationship between fear and survival.

3rd-12th grade
Dungeons & Dragons Camp
July 3rd-7th,
1pm–4pm each day,
Dragon’s Lair Comics and Fantasy
In this camp, students will create a D&D character, designing everything from their physical traits to their backstory. Campers will then work together in small parties to solve problems, defeat monsters, and save the day as they invent fantasy stories and keep a journal of their daily adventures. Join a wonderful team of adventurers and Dungeon Masters and lead your party on an unforgettable quest!

5th–8th Grade
Ghost Story Camp
June 12h–16th, 1pm–4pm each day
If you love haunted houses, scary legends, and spooky tales based on true events, join us for our ghost story telling camp where we’ll get down to what really gives us goosebumps! Together, we’ll explore local hauntings, famous frights, and draw inspiration from our favorite scary stories while we come up with our own to tell around the campfire.

4th–8th Grade
Horror Comics Camp
June 5th–9th, 1pm–4pm each day
Do you love reading manga and comics? Are you a fan of creepy stories and scary movies? In this Horror Comics Camp, we’ll use the combination of writing and visual art to explore the many-faceted genre of horror. With guidance from a professional cartoonist, you’ll dive into comic making techniques and explore what the genre has to offer, finding your own voice within this incredibly diverse medium. You will leave the camp with the skills to create your own original spine-chilling comic.
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