A Writer's Residency Round-Up
With advice from Ireland, France and Budapest
Hi Fictional Therapy Readers! I’m interrupting your regular service to give you an update about the writer’s residencies I’ve been on lately. This is partly because my brother got married on Saturday, and I am still too hungover to deal with any problems besides getting through the day, but it’s also because I’m expanding this Substack to include the occasional literature-adjacent essay, or whatever you want to call it. I know many of you are writers or creatives yourselves so you might be interested in hearing about how I discovered, applied to and attended the residencies I’ve done in the past two years - you should do them too!
The concept of a writer’s residency actually answers an ‘agony aunt’ problem of my own which I began to stew over a few years back. The problem was this: late noughties and early 2000s culture had led me to believe that the life of a writer was going to be a glamorous, Carrie-Bradshaw-esque existence, in which I’d constantly be invited to fancy parties and perhaps petitioned to undertake absurd journalistic assignments such as tricking a man into falling in love with me (see How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days; Never Been Kissed etc). In actual fact my writer’s life seemed to consist mostly of me sitting in a small North London room in my pyjamas trying not to lose my mind as I churned out plays (hah, theatre, the most “collaborative” of the writing disciplines). Not glamorous at all.
But then I discovered writer’s residencies - and suddenly writing was not just a metaphorical portal to other worlds, but a literal ticket to them too. Here’s how I found the first one: two years ago my landlord surprise-upped my rent by £300 a month, leaving me unable to sign up to another year in his property and therefore temporarily between houses, so I was looking for a place to pass the months until I could move in with a friend. It was a bit of a stressful time because I was also working on a big new play commission (first world problems, I know). During this period, my family invited me to come on a holiday to Italy and so I had the mad idea I might find a European residency I could potentially head to afterwards to find space and time to work. That’s how I stumbled upon La Muse, a rambling old house in the south of France, which is technically a retreat rather than a residency (the main difference as far as I understand is that you generally pay for the former and get paid to do the latter). I’d read on a blog that the owner of La Muse sometimes lets young or financially unstable writers offer help around the house in exchange for bed and board, so I wrote to him, and he kindly let me come for two weeks for almost nothing.
It was absolutely amazing. La Muse is properly, properly in the middle of nowhere, perched high up in the Montaigne Noire. It’s located in a village so tiny that a food truck still comes once a week to deliver fresh produce, and apart from that there’s no shops or anything, just a scattering of cottages and breath-taking views. The big, romantic old house has room for about ten writers, so you’ll get company if you want it, and house dinners in the evening. But you’ll also get total tranquility, a room with a glorious writing desk and an even more glorious view, and a beautiful landscape to explore whenever you’re not working. Even if you paid full price for one of the rooms, it’s a brilliant deal and I couldn’t recommend the whole experience more highly. The best way to get there from the U.K. is to fly or take the train to Carcassonne. Alain, the ‘guardian’ of the retreat, comes to pick up new guests from town once a week and then drops them off again at the end, so you can do the whole thing without a car if, like me, you don’t drive. Read more here: Stay at La Muse
Staying at La Muse meant I caught the writer-residency bug and began to invest serious time into searching for further ways to turn writing into a globe-trotting adventure. If this is sounding exciting to you too, just do loads of googling, and you will find things - for example, my aunt recently sent me this great list of upcoming retreats which is worth checking out (though many of these it looks like you have to pay for): Upcoming Residencies
The next one I successfully applied to was the Heinrich Boell Cottage in Ireland. The application process for this was very old-school for me: I had to send a letter in the post, as well as a writing sample, and then I waited a really long time to hear back (like, months). However, it looks like applications might have just moved online: Heinrich Boell Cottage Applications. This residency has a long lead in - I applied a full year before I ended up going - but if you’re successful, you get a beautiful cottage all to yourself for two weeks as well as a nice bursary to live on.
The cottage is very remote, located on windswept Achill Island which is part of the Wild Atlantic Way, and it would be hard to navigate this landscape without a car. Fortunately, the residency allowed me to bring my amazing dad (and fellow writer) along, so we were able to drive to the craggy beaches, sandy dunes and tiny pubs that make the island so special. I have a bit of an insider’s tip here: the selection committee aren’t actually looking for writers who are interested in exploring Heinrich Boell’s work (as you might expect them to be) - they just want writers or visual artists with credible experience and/or a clear pitch for something to work on while there. Again, this residency was magical. The cottage is light-filled, cosy and comfortable, with stupendous views of the sea and a choice of three rooms to work in. As well as doing some (hopefully final) edits on the afore-mentioned big play project, the cottage is also where I properly started Fictional Therapy, so it has a special place in my heart.
My third residency is still upcoming, and it’s actually more of a fellowship. I applied to a programme run by the Institute of Advanced Study in Budapest, which invites academics, writers and artists from across the globe to come and explore a chosen theme each year as part of an international research programme they run. This one was the hardest to apply to: as well as the standard cover letter etc, you have to lay out a comprehensive research proposal for your time there with a bibliography and so on, as well as a week by week work plan. But the perks it offers are also the best: at least three months of accommodation in a property owned by the university, plus a generous stipend to live on. I can’t wait. As I haven’t been yet, here are some pictures of what my room and study will look like that I’ve taken from the IAS’ own website:
If you’re interested you can read more about what I’ll be working on in Budapest here: IAS - Emma Hemingford
As you’ll be able to see from the three I’ve done, the scope of what a residency can look like varies wildly, from a two week trip to three or six months away; from a solo endeavour to a shared house with a more communal vibe. Lots of these opportunities are not well advertised, so it really is worth doing some googling and sending off a bunch of applications. Do not be disheartened: I applied for loads I didn’t get (I’ve just successfully blanked them from my mind) but if you stay persistent you’ll bag one eventually - and once you’ve done one, getting another becomes easier. So, my take-away Fictional Therapy advice this week: if you want to live your best Carrie Bradshaw writing life, it’s all about the residencies.
(Sorry for being a day late with this again! My trip to Canada for my brother’s wedding has slowed things down a little. From next week, we’re back to a Fictional Therapy column every Sunday.)
Wow, this is serious food for thought! I wonder if they’d let me bring my husband and twins 😄🥳. So many congratulations on Budapest. Thanks for sharing this. I may well apply.
Thank you for sharing these ideas and links!