Designate Your Gift
Every summer, 30 budding writers come to Washington College to participate in a literary extravaganza comprised of workshops with WC faculty and nationally renowned writers, craft talks and panels, a letterpress demonstration in our Print Shop, open mics, and readings. By funding a young writer, you'll be giving them a vibrant, one-of-a-kind Lit House experience. And you may be helping the College as well: more than 50% of attending rising-seniors enroll at Washington College!
Cost of tuition, room, and board is $849. Other needs are funding scholar book bundles for $100 each, ensuring that every Cherry Tree scholar receives the books authored by our world-class writing faculty. We currently fund at least 10 scholars each year.
Any amount, of course, will help us deliver what has come to be the an impressive and inspirational summer experience for budding writers!
Donate here if you'd like to help us defray our operational costs! The Lit House is not an endowed center; we unfortunately draw off of the College's budget. Your donation to the Lit House Friends fund will help us fund operational costs, including the honoraria we pay to visiting writers, staffing needs, and travel costs to take our students to annual writing conferences, giving them a real-world experience!
By becoming a Lit House Friend, you'll increase our ability to bring fabulous writers to campus, send our impressive students on transformative trips, and keep WC's literary community as vibrant as ever—particularly in a time of diminishing focus on funding the literary arts.
The heart of the Lit House is our Print Shop studio, where antique letterpress printing is married to state-of-the-art technologies. Here, students learn the publishing process from setting type to desktop software. Our workshops introduce learners to letterpress and bookmaking. We produce broadsides and books, as well as a national literary journal, Cherry Tree, on which current students work. Your support would help to keep these workshops going, our journal running, and our broadside and book series going well into the future of publishing!