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Being held captive at home with kids 24/7 is no joke when you are also trying to finish a creative writing project. We have many ways to help out--our accountability...
You may have heard that some of us (Anna Solomon, Greg Olear, Caroline Grant, & Thomas Israel) submitted a panel proposal about parenting/writing for AWP in Boston 2013, I don’t know if we will be selected but we intend, among other resources, to present a parent-conscious list of writer’s getaways such as family-friendly residencies: writing colonies at which kids can either stay with their parent or there’s programming for them. This is like writer’s gold, and it’s a trend we would love to see proliferate. For a start, here’s a list of a few current residency programs that parents are encouraged to apply for that allow kids to remain the whole time with the writer:
Acadia National Park.
Right. There is exactly one. It’s in Maine. Here’s the website.
The easiest way to search for an appropriate residency is through the online search engine on the Alliance of Artists Communities Website.
But I’ve done the depressing work for you.
Besides the one writing residency program in the world that does not require membership that does allow children for the entire duration of the writer’s stay–Go Acadia!–there are additionally seven residencies in the world that currently allow children for the entire residency, but you have to be a member of the organization sponsoring the residency to apply. Six, luckily, are in the US–though most of them require membership. One is in China.
18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica
Elsewhere Studios, Colorado
Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown
Headlands Center for the Arts, San Fran
McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte
Red Gate Residency, China
Spiro Arts, Utah
This has got to change. Either residencies have to acknowledge the difficulties (as Yaddo does) of being away for extended periods without seeing family, and allow for family visits – or writing colonies need to take into account they are losing a vast clientele of great writers with incomes who would happily go away for four days to a week, just to have some mental space. Why should the Santa Fe Doubletree Hotel gain money that deserves to be spent at StarryNights?
You tell me. Next time, we talk about some published writers and how they carve out mental space.
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