USA Africa Dialogue Series - Applying To A Writers’ Residency: An Expert Breakdown Of The Requirements

By Grant Faulkner

Every writer I know craves one thing: a peaceful period of uninterrupted time dedicated to writing. A room of one's owns, in other words, with maybe some meals thrown in and a little pocket money. Or even just the room.

Such a thing exists, of course, in the form of a writers residency. While some residencies charge money, many are located in idyllic, pastoral places and actually give you a room in a mansion or a cottage, a stipend, and most important, time to let your thoughts and pen wander with unfettered glee.

I've been working on a novel for an embarrassing number of years. I've finished two and a half drafts of the book, but with kids and work and work and kids (did I mention kids?) I'm writing during stray fragments of time desperately squeezed into an increasingly frenetic life. Lately I've felt as if I've lost the necessary writing momentum, not to mention the stimulating percolations of imaginative thought, to push the novel into a publishable state, and while I briefly considered buying a van and abandoning my family and my work, I decided the more morally acceptable thing to do is apply to writers residencies.

When I began doing the research, however, several parts of the application process flummoxed me. What were residency directors looking for in a résumé? How detailed did they want the work plan to be? Did letters of recommendation have to be from an applicant's former writing instructors? What were they looking for in a writing sample?

I decided I needed to know more about how to apply if I was going to wager approximately thirty dollars a crack for a chance to experience these otherworldly idylls.

The Work Plan
Many residencies ask you to present a work plan. Usually no more than a page or so is required, but even that seemed long for the plan I had in mind. "I want to write, take the occasional walk, read, and then write some more. I want to forget my life, to immerse myself in my novel as if my novel is the world, to dream my novel throughout each night's sleep."

And that's the long version. So what are residencies looking for in a work plan—beyond the obvious?

"We used to get hundreds of proposals that amounted to 'I need time and space to work on this book,' so we made the statement optional and changed it to 'a brief sketch of your life as a writer,' and we still don't look at it carefully, if at all," says Salvatore Scibona, author of The End (Graywolf Press, 2008) and writing coordinator at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He adds that some applicants have even interpreted "sketch" as an invitation to draw amusing little pictures or diagrams of their lives.

Likewise, the Jentel Artist Residency Program, located on a working cattle ranch twenty miles southeast of Sheridan, Wyoming, views the work plan loosely. It's an overview, not a contract. "Once candidates are in a drop-dead gorgeous, mountain-view landscape with glorious light and amazing blue skies and pastures dotted with black angus and mule deer, sharing their time and space with five other creative spirits, candidates…are welcome to make changes to their proposals," says Jentel executive director Mary Jane Edwards.

The point of a residency, after all, is for a writer to have time that isn't stifling or regimented. "The residency program is designed as a retreat experience to pursue personal creative growth," says Judy Freeland, residency coordinator of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, California. Writers' project proposals aren't even rated by Djerassi jurors, and the proposal doesn't affect an applicant's ranking order.

But then why is a work plan required?

"We are most interested in people who have a clear vision of what they will do with the time, such as revise a manuscript in progress or finish a book of poems," says Bob Kealing, who oversees the Kerouac Project, one of the more unique residencies available: a three-month stay in the Orlando, Florida, cottage where Jack Kerouac wrote his novel Dharma Bums.

The real purpose of a work plan might be to simply prove that you have one. Show that you're planning to get some serious writing done. And keep in mind that some residencies expect more than an amusing drawing—the work plan might just tip the scales on a final decision.

Kara Corthron, a jurist in playwriting at the Millay Colony in Austerlitz, New York, says, "In our decision making, because there were so many strong playwrights who applied, we went back and really discussed the goals outlined by each candidate, and these were instrumental in the final outcome. So, the essay is definitely not a formality. Give it as much care and attention as you give your work sample."

The Résumé
I was surprised to see that several residencies asked for a résumé, a word that has made me shiver ever since I decided to become a writer. I'm not a writing teacher, I haven't published any books, and, until recently, I had never had a job at a literary organization. Although I've worked as a journalist and an editor, I wondered how an accountant or a bartender or a masseuse might fare against those employed by MFA programs or publishing houses. For better or worse, I sent in my professional résumé and hoped that the jargon of various jobs wouldn't bias jurors against me.

"There is value in a monthlong residency no matter what type of job or career one has," says Djerassi's Freeland. "The fact that an applicant has a day job and a résumé that reflects this does not hinder his chances in any way."

It seems that residencies generally ask for résumés not to evaluate your place in the writing world or reward professional accomplishments, but simply to get a better idea of who you are and how you might fit with other groups of candidates. "Jentel staff look at the résumé for insight into experience, expertise, and skills that may be helpful in scheduling groups of candidates for each session," says Edwards.

Who you are can be especially important in some cases. Take the artist-in-residence program at Denali National Park, which offers a cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness—peaceful to some, but nervous making to others. "We need to feel comfortable that the writer will be comfortable and competent living in the relatively rustic conditions of the East Fork cabin for ten days, can deal with potential encounters with grizzly bears and other large mammals in their natural habitat, and that she will respect the environment and the animals," says Timothy Raines, park ranger and media specialist at Denali.

While it's obvious that a writer must have the right temperament to be successful at Denali, other residencies don't search for artistic personalities that are a good match. "With a few remarkable exceptions, it is very difficult to predict, based on an artist's work and profile, what would make a good fit and what wouldn't," says Caroline Crumpacker, executive director at Millay. "Our aim is to fit ourselves, as much as possible, to the artists who come here rather than to ask them to accommodate us or adhere to a specific idea of what makes a 'good' resident artist."

The Letter of Recommendation
Most of the residencies I researched don't require letters of recommendation, but some do, such as the Anderson Center, an artist retreat in Red Wing, Minnesota, and Jentel. I graduated from my creative writing program at San Francisco State University fifteen years ago and haven't been on campus since, and even though I'm Facebook friends with a few of my former professors, I wondered how well they'd remember me after teaching hundreds of students in the intervening years. Would it be better to ask my boss for a recommendation? Friends who are published authors?

The directors I spoke with say they prefer recommendations that focus on a writer's work ethic and creative spirit rather than the quality of work, and therefore it doesn't matter who writes the letter as long as those points are addressed. "Since the opportunity for unfettered time and space to create and community are key factors in the experience at Jentel, testimony of a writer's work ethic and congenial spirit rank highly compared to a third-party endorsement of the writer's ability," says Edwards.

In short, recommendations need to offer a window into who you are—and perhaps offer assurance that you're not dangerous or disruptive. "Staff just want to avoid ax murderers, drug dealers, and bandits, who might put undue pressure on the dynamics of the group in residence," Edwards says.

"Because letters of reference tend to sound the same, all with the expected glowing comments," says Anderson's director, Robert Hedin, "they rarely play a significant role in the process."

The Manuscript
There's no way around it. In the end, your writing is what matters most. "The writing sample is the most important piece in the application. We look for quality and originality," says Djerassi's Freeland.

But what are quality and originality? Isn't this the age-old question about literature? One person thinks Kerouac is a genius while another considers him little more than a typist. All the residencies I researched said they don't look for a specific aesthetic, but each has a rigorous and specific approach to evaluating manuscripts.

Millay's process, which includes a jury for each genre or art form—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, visual art, composing, and playwriting—aims to ensure that the colony will host a broad range of artists at any given time. "Each jury is deliberately composed of artists and critics with different approaches to and ideas about contemporary art-making," says Millay's Crumpacker. "We ask that jurors not judge applications solely on an affinity with their own ideas, but take each application on its own terms. That said, if jurists feel the terms an applicant chooses are objectively outmoded, limited, or banal, they should judge the application accordingly."

Most residencies have a rotating panel of jurors, but they tend not to announce the names of the jurors until after they've made their selections, so you're unlikely to be able to choose residencies based on jurors who might prefer your writing style over others. Perhaps that doesn't matter so much, though. Scibona emphasizes jurors' "rigorous thoroughness" and stresses that their selections are informed by their love of the work.

"The juror who comes to the table and says, 'this work is wonderful,' knows something more than the equally sincere and deliberate juror who says, 'this work is no good.' The whole jury procedure is organized to exploit the special genius inherent in admiration," he says.

As with most residencies, manuscripts are sent to Jentel jurors with no information about the writers. Jentel jurors use a ten-point rating system to level the playing field based on the following categories: Originality/Creativity, Significance/Importance of Work, Developed Personal Voice/Vision, and Technique/Craft.

"Applicants should send in what they believe to be their best work. It does not need to be published. They may also send in more than one sample and include some work-in-progress. It does not always have to relate to the project proposal," says Djerassi's Freeland. It's worth noting, however, that a published story doesn't necessarily give one writer an edge over another, whose piece might be unpublished. "Neither publishing nor degrees matter to us, except by way of giving the jurors a little context for the work itself," says Scibona. "I can't think of a case in which we liked the writing more or less once we learned where the writer went to school or where she had published."

That said, for the Fine Arts Work Center the notion of "emerging" is important. "Because the fellowship is expressly for emerging writers, a publishing record does matter," Scibona says. "For our purposes, once an applicant has published a full-length book of creative work, he is no longer eligible."

Other residencies, however, do privilege writers' successes. "Though emerging artists and writers are accepted into the residency program each year, an established track record of accomplishments is most preferable," says Anderson's Hedin. "For poets and writers, work samples published in a book or a reputable national journal tend to trump unpublished work."

Millay is interested in new and established authors. "We ask jurors to look at both accomplishment and promise—some work samples will be more polished than others, but polish should not be the only criterion," Crumpacker says. "We hope that jurors will also consider the ambition and relevance of an artist's work and proposed project."

A residency such as the Atlantic Center for the Arts, in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, offers a different method for evaluating applications—a rotating artist-in-residence who sets up her selection criteria and chooses residents. "We schedule a master artist-in-residence to lead a three-week residency—to be an instructor, mentor, colleague to those wishing to attend. We ask each master artist to make a 'residency statement'—suggesting the type of format, topic of the residency, as well as the type of applicant they are interested in working with," says codirector Jim Frost.

***

As with all things a writer seeks, the competition for a residency is steep. Consider that the Fine Arts Work Center received six hundred fifty applications for eight first-year fellowship slots in 2011, and Djerassi receives approximately two hundred fifty applicants each year for twenty residencies.

Getting the proverbial room of one's own is never easy, but it could easily be a turning point in a writer's life, providing crucial time to finish an important piece of work. Carefully research each residency that interests you and be sure you understand what each requires in terms of application materials and guidelines by visiting the website and calling or sending an e-mail to clarify if necessary.

(Faulkner is the executive director of the Office of Letters and Light, which organizes National Novel Writing Month and other creative writing events.)

Link: https://www.pw.org/content/applying_to_a_writers_residency_an_expert_breakdown_of_the_requirements_0

 

 

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