Programs
& Residencies
for LGBTQ+ Youth
We create queer-centered spaces, online & in-person, for LGBTQ+ young people to connect with others and practice their creativity, alongside some amazing LGBTQ+ artist-mentors.
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Online Workshops & Residencies
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Writer's Room
A free, virtual writing program for LGBTQ+ youth ages 13–19, offered in seasonal cohorts (Spring & Fall) for participants seeking a dedicated, ongoing writing experience.
💫 8 sessions over 4 months
🗓️ Every other Tuesday
⏰ Meets 8pm ET | 5pm PT
🌈 Open to LGBTQ+ youth and allies, Ages 13-19
💻 Participants join from anywhere via Zoom
(Workshops are held in English)
Each season, participants enroll as a cohort and commit to attending all sessions, allowing for deeper creative continuity and community. Space is limited each season to support an intimate cohort experience. Writer’s Room is facilitated by a rotating roster of professional LGBTQ+ writers who guide sessions through prompts, discussion, and shared exploration. The program welcomes writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, emphasizing a supportive, no-judgment space for creative expression.
Fall 2026 session is currently in session.
Register for the next cohort here.
I had never considered myself a writer. I was really good at it in grade school/middle school…and then I just kinda of dropped it… [Writer’s Room] brought it back like a storm…I didn’t think it was my thing, and then Future Perfect made it my thing. I can’t imagine my life without The Future Perfect Project.
—Sarah (Minneapolis, MN)
FPP Writer’s Room Participant
Future Perfect Records
A year-long, online, application-based residency for LGBTQ+ singer-songwriters, producers, and musicians ages 16–22.
Future Perfect Records is a no-cost, year-long, creative residency where participants:
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Connect with other LGBTQ+ musicians from all over the United States
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Build a concept album together
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Write & record their own original track with an experienced producer
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Get guidance from professional queer guest artists + mentors
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Gain tools for releasing + promoting their music
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Grow their voice, skill set, and chosen family
The 2026–2027 cohort is currently in session.
Stay in the loop about future opportunities by joining our network here.
Being in touch with people in my community, though we are all so different, was eternally beneficial for me not only as an artist but as a person. The growth, compassion, and guidance will always stick with me!
—Bryan (Milwaukee, WI)
Future Perfect Records resident
I'm Feeling Queer Today! Podcast
FPP’s signature podcast series, produced by an all queer-youth team, exploring themes and issues through a queer youth lens, amplifying the voices of LGBTQ+ young people across North America.
Currently on it's fourth season, the podcast has received acclaim and coverage from Apple, Amazon Podcasts, and much more. Meet the current cohort of producers here.
The 2026–2027 cohort of youth producers is currently in session.
Stay in the loop about applications by joining our network here.
We are spreading lovely stories of queerness all over the world to people who need to hear them most.
—Wallace, (Kingston, NY)
Writer/Co-producer, I’m Feeling Queer Today!
The Julie Novak "Original Voice" Writer's Residency
Created in memory of FPP team member Julie Novak (1972–2024), this residency supports LGBTQ+ writers ages 18–22 whose voices are unmistakably their own.
Each selected writer receives four months of free one-on-one mentorship with a professional LGBTQ+ writer-mentor, plus a full scholarship to a week-long summer workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown — housing, round-trip travel, and meals included at no cost. Residents choose from workshops in poetry, prose, memoir, playwriting, photography, printmaking, and painting.
Like Julie, a mix of big heart, punk rock, and stand-up-comic humor, we're looking for writers with real originality of voice. So if you feel like a weirdo, this is for you. As Julie would say, there is "no one like you."
2026 residents: Jadyn Baria, Lily Mueller, and Stellan Knowles, mentored by AJ Brady, Sparrow Murray, and Eddie Maisonet.
Join our network to be notified about 2027 applications.
The Julie Novak “Original Voice" Writer's Residency is supported by the Jason Mraz Foundation and the Fine Arts Work Center.
In-Person Programs
We partner with LGBTQ Centers, arts institutions, and schools across the United States to provide queer-affirming spaces for creative practice, artmaking, and peer-to-peer connection, all in-person and 100% free to the youth.
What We Build Together:
Since 2019, The Future Perfect Project has brought free, queer-affirming creative workshops to more than 55 schools, LGBTQ+ centers, and arts institutions across 25 states— from Birmingham to Provo, Little Rock to Kingston. Every workshop is 100% free to the young people who attend.
Selected Highlights ⬇️
NYC Pride (2025/2026)
For two years running, FPP has put LGBTQ+ young people on the bill at New York City's Pride weekend. In 2025, two FPP youth artists performed at NYC Youth Pride, and our booth introduced the organization to thousands of young people and families over the course of the day.
In June 2026, we came back bigger with our booth anchored in the Expression area at South Street Seaport, featuring a collaborative flower installation that grew all day as young people added to it. Onstage, two FPP artists — Fae Symphony and Cameron Esther — performed live at both the NYC Youth Pride Rally and the Family Pride.
Love on Wheels (2025/2026)
One Friday night each March, Skate Time in Accord, NY opens exclusively to LGBTQ+ and allied teens from across Ulster County and the Hudson Valley. Young people skate to a live DJ set, watch drag performances by local artists, make jewelry in a quiet craft room, eat pizza and cake, and meet staff from nearly every LGBTQ+ youth organization in the region. Admission, food, and materials are entirely free!
FPP hosts the event alongside TMI Project, the New Paltz Pride Coalition, the Hudson Valley LGBTQ+ Community Center in Kingston, Wayfinder Experience, Planned Parenthood, Mid Hudson Mischiefs, and Hudson Pride so one night doubles as an on-ramp to a full year of support. Love on Wheels launched in March 2025 with 38 young people.
In March 2026, 65 came through the door, with no paid marketing. It returns in March 2027 and is expected to be even bigger! We’re giving local queer youth the sense of belonging they need to thrive!
Queerwater (2025/2026)
Queerwater is Hudson River Sloop Clearwater's no-cost, three-day leadership retreat for LGBTQ+ youth and allies in the Hudson Valley. It’s named for the nickname the boat earned in the 1980s, when a crew of openly queer sailors caught the attention of every other vessel on the river. In both 2025 and 2026, FPP joined the program as a creative partner, leading a creative writing workshop for the cohort in Kingston, NY. Over an afternoon, participants wrote and shared original work about who they are and where they're headed, turning a leadership retreat into a room full of new artists and friends.
FAWC Residency Week (2025/2026)
Every summer, the four-month Julie Novak "Original Voice" Writer's Residency culminates in a week at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA., one of the country's most storied artist colonies, and one that rarely opens its doors to writers this young. The residency's inaugural cohort of two writers spent the week in Provincetown in summer 2025. In 2026, the program grew to three. Participants work with FAWC during the week of June 28 - July 4, with housing, meals, travel, and tuition fully covered. Each resident leaves with new work headed for an FP Press chapbook, and a week's worth of being an artist among artists.
The residency is supported by the Jason Mraz Foundation and the Fine Arts Work Center.
Artivism: A Community Speaks to Itself
As our primary in-person workshop, ARTIVISM calls on its participants to move through a series of writing and songwriting prompts to tell their own stories and express their visions of the future living inside of them. At the end of a week-long workshop, these young people share their work in front of the larger student body or community at large. Their work is also documented and shared through other audio and video media projects.
The Last Grove:
Queerness & The Environment (Spring 2022)
In Spring 2022, in collaboration with Atlantic Theater and theater-artists, nicHi douglas and Jeanna Phillips, a cast of eight LGBTQ+ young writer-performers rehearsed for two weeks to create a devised theater piece about the human species and climate damage titled The Last Grove. The piece was performed outdoors in New York City.
Future Perfect Records:
Live in New York City
In June 2022, as part of Lincoln Center’s Pride programming, our first cohort of ten LGBTQIA+ singer-songwriters from around the country met in-person for the very first time in New York City to perform their album live, including performing as part of a secret showcase with Sofar Sounds. In October 2023, the second FPRecords cohort performed their album, DIVINITY live at the prestigious Joe’s Pub in New York City, an experience documented in the short film, Because of My Voice.
Where We've Been So Far
55+ SITES ACROSS 25 STATES
ALABAMA
Magic City Acceptance Center, Birmingham
ARKANSAS
DYSC (Diverse Youth for Social Change), Little Rock
Central High School, Little Rock
CALIFORNIA
Orange County School of the Arts, Santa Ana
Canyon Crest Academy, San Diego
Alan Clark High School, Glendale
Glendale Junior High, Glendale
Herbert Hoover High School, Glendale
COLORADO
Denver School of the Arts, Denver
Strive Prep, Denver
CONNECTICUT
New Haven Academy, New Haven
Hartford Stage Company Youth Program,
Watkinson School, Hartford
True Colors LGBTQ Youth Conference, Storrs
PRISM LGBTQ Center, East Haddam
INDIANA
Greater Youth of Evansville
Brownsburg High School, Brownsburg
Herron High School, Indianapolis
Indiana Youth Group, Indianapolis
Park Tudor High School, Indianapolis
IOWA
Iowa Youth Writing Program, Iowa City
KANSAS
Lawrence Library, Lawrence
Park Highland High, Topeka
KENTUCKY
Western Middle School For The Arts, Louisville
MAINE
Out Maine, Rockland
MASSACHUSETTS
Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown
Worcester Academy, Worcester
MICHIGAN
Michigan GSA Network
Stand With Trans
MINNESOTA
South High School, Minneapolis
MISSOURI
Kansas City Repertory Youth Program, Kansas City
Winnetonka High School, Kansas City
NEVADA
The LGBTQIA2S+ Community Center of Southern Nevada
NEW JERSEY
Hudson Pride Center, Jersey City
NEW YORK
Kingston High School, Kingston
Camp Lightbulb, NYC
Professional Performing Arts School, NYC
Brookyn Technical School, Brooklyn
Ellenville High School, Ellenville
Rondout Valley High School, Accord
Little Island School, NYC
Harvey Milk High School, NYC
The Wayfinder Experience, NY State
Queerwater, Kingston
NORTH CAROLINA
Time Out Youth Center, Charlotte
Inside Out LGBTQ Youth Center, Durham
OHIO
Albert Einstein Academy, Lakewood
Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Columbus
PENNSYLVANIA
High School of Creative and Performing Arts, Philadelphia
SOUTH CAROLINA
Uplift LGBTQ+ Youth Outreach Center, Spartanburg
TENNESSEE
Oasis Center for LGBT Youth, Nashville
TEXAS
HATCH, LGBTQ Youth Center, Houston
Tony’s Place, Houston
UTAH
Encircle Youth Summit, Lehi
Encircle, Provo, Salt Lake City & St. Charles
WASHINGTON
Mercer Island High School, Mercer Island
Garfield High School, Seattle