About

Alpha is a ten-day residential creative writing workshop for teens ages 14–19 who write science fiction, fantasy, or horror, held each summer on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg in western Pennsylvania. Founded in 2002 and supported by grants from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), Alpha is an independent nonprofit — it is not owned or affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh. It is one of the only summer programs in the country dedicated exclusively to speculative fiction for teen writers.

Each summer Alpha admits 20 students, who spend ten days writing, workshopping, and attending lectures and sessions with a rotating roster of guest authors drawn from the professional science fiction and fantasy field — past guests have included Hugo Award winners, New York Times bestsellers, and major figures in the genre. The workshop's central assignment is a short story written during the program, critiqued by peers and staff, and revised in time for the program's closing Submission Party — an event where students are encouraged to submit their finished work to professional publications, with stamps and envelopes provided for print submissions. This is not a symbolic gesture: Alpha treats its students as emerging writers entering a real field.

With 20 spots and a national applicant pool drawn from serious young genre writers, Alpha is genuinely selective. Applications for 2026 were open February 1–March 1, with notifications in mid-April. The application requires a writing sample; there is no application fee. Tuition is $1,800, covering housing and meals on the UPG campus; transportation to Greensburg is not included. Scholarships are available, including two full-tuition awards: the Tamora Pierce Scholarship (open to all applicants) and a BIPOC student scholarship. Alpha explicitly states it has never turned away an accepted student who could not afford to attend.

Alpha is explicitly welcoming of neurodivergent and gender-diverse teens and describes itself as a safe, inclusive community — an unusual and deliberate emphasis for a writing program of this type.
For a teen writer serious about speculative fiction, Alpha occupies a distinct place in the landscape: small, selective, professionally connected, and structured around the actual craft and business of writing genre fiction rather than general creative enrichment.