Heather Hill passed out fancy hats to Inkspire campers and dived deep into the Kentucky Derby’s history Tuesday at First Presbyterian Church.

Hill, outreach education and program coordinator at the Kentucky Derby Museum, talked to Inkspire campers to not only teach them about Kentucky’s treasured horse race but to also show the writers how to be a good public speaker.

Jacqueline Hamilton, founder and director of the nonprofit writing camp, said Inkspire is in its seventh year. The weeklong camp begins each morning around 9 a.m., except for Thursday which starts later as it is reserved for a haiku and sky lantern sendoff.

Campers start each morning singing a rendition of the camp song, which is “Writin’ Robin” this year.

Throughout the week, the 28 campers learn about VOICES, also known as the six traits of writing: voice, organization, ideas, conventions, excellent word choice and sentence fluency.

“If your writing has those six traits, you have a good piece of writing,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton said she also tries to incorporate a “social justice” component every year. This year’s component is the Kindertransport, which was the organized rescue effort of thousands of Jewish children that took place during the nine months before the outbreak of World War II.

“I’ve managed to find stories of hope and everything in the midst, but it’s still letting the children know important parts of history,” Hamilton said.

Students also read a lot of mentor texts throughout the week; this year, the campers are focusing on reading humor such as books by Jeff Foxworthy, Shel Silverstein and more.

“It’s all about experiences, experiences with books, experiences with people, experiences with yourself,” Hamilton said.

Campers also paint a rendition of a piece by a famous artist on canvas. This year’s inspiration is Katsushika Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”

“All we do is just do a little bit of outline in pencil, and then they go in each day they work on their paintings,” Hamilton said. “So that is another experience.”

Students also create poetry pillows, participate in a “poetry punch” and read their finished work at the end of the week. They helped fold origami cranes for the Clark County Public Library and listened to a variety of guest speakers, with more to come.

Central Bank provided scholarships for the camp this year and donated money for T-shirts. The Sun will also publish some of the students’ writing at the end of the camp, and students will send off “perfect thank you letters” to everyone who helped with the camp.

“The mission of Inkspire is simply to create an atmosphere of enjoying writing in a community,” Hamilton said. “The idea is to make writing a pleasure.”