Would you like a few months in Iceland to expand your writing horizons? Or perhaps a working cattle ranch in rural Wyoming would provide you with the inspiration you need to start a new project? These residencies provide writers with a chance to escape daily life’s distractions and focus on their work.
Each residency has its own terms and conditions, so please read the relevant websites thoroughly before commencing any applications.
American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship
is open to writers worldwide. Fellows receive a stipend of US$5000 to assist with travel and housing costs. Founded in 1920, the American Library is Paris is a private, non-profit English-language library. Applications close on 15 February.
Vermont Studio Center
is the largest international artists’ and writers’ residency program in the United States. Each month the Center hosts over 50 writers and artists from across the country and around the world. There are three fellowship application deadlines in 2020; 15 February, 15 June and 1 October.
Stockholm Writers Prize
is designed to give emerging writers the time, space, and inspiration to focus on social-justice themed creative writing. One emerging writer – defined as any currently unagented writer who has never published a book-length work of creative writing in any genre – will receive a seven-day residency in Stockholm, Sweden, including attendance at the Stockholm Writers Festival and US$1000 towards travel costs. A $25 entry fee applies. Applications close on 15 February.
Tartu City of Literature International Residency Program
is open to writers and translators wishing to spend time in Estonia’s second largest city. Recipients will receive a two-month stay at the house of the former Karl Ristikivi Museum, a scholarship of 600 euros per month and travel costs to and from Tartu up to 350 euros. Residencies will take place in April and May. The deadline for applications is 21 February.
Historic Joy Kogawa House
is located in British Columbia, Canada. This residency is available to Canadian writers who have published two books and have previous teaching and public speaking experience. Residencies typically run for two months, at a time convenient to the writer. Writers may apply for remuneration through the Canada Council or other arts council. Applications for residencies are expected to open on 1 February and close on 28 February.
Bucheon City of Literature
in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, is inviting applications from writers, translators and cartoonists of comics and graphic novels connected to the UNESCO Cities of Literature to apply for its inaugural residency program. The successful applicants receive airfares, accommodation, a studio, a living allowance and a personal assistant. Residencies can last for between four and six weeks. The deadline is 28 February.
Ljubljana City of Literature Writer in the Park International Residency Program
is offering two one-month residencies for writers at the newly restored Švicarija/Swisshouse Creative Centre. The residency is aimed at foreign published writers with a “palpable, factual relation with any of the other UNESCO Cities of Literature that has to be apparent and described as part of the application.” Applicants must have published at least one book. Applications close on 29 February.
Gröndal’s House UNESCO City of Literature Residency
takes place in Reykjavík, Iceland. The 2020 residency is open to published children’s fiction writers from, or affiliated with, any of the other 38 Cities of Literature, writing in any genre. The residency takes place in October and includes travel and accomodation. Applications close on 1 March.
Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts
offers year-round residencies of between two and eight weeks in Nebraska City. Open to writers, visual artists, and music composers worldwide, each resident receives accommodation, studio space, and a $100 per week stipend. Approximately 60 residencies are awarded per year. There are two deadlines each year: 1 March for residencies taking place between July and December, and 1 September for residencies between January and June.
Mastheads Writers Residency
offers five writers exclusive use of one of the Mastheads studios, a US$900 stipend, travel reimbursement, and a room in a communal house. In 202 the rustic, portable studios are installed in Arrowhead, Herman Melville’s former home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Applications close on 1 March.
PlySpace
is an artist-in-residence program in Muncie, Indiana, open to writers as well as visual artists, performers, designers and other creative individuals. Each resident is expected to work with a community collaborative partner and complete a community-based project while in residence. All residencies include living space, studio space, a $500 travel stipend and a $500 living stipend (additional support may be available for some residents). Applications for Fall 2020 residencies are open until 1 March.
Kalamalka Press Writer-in-Residence Program
takes place at Caetani Cultural Centre in British Columbia, Canada, and is open to emerging and established writers in any genre. The residency includes four weeks of accommodation and studio space, with the possibility of extended stay, as well as an honorarium. Writers are responsible for their own transportation, food, and supplies. Residencies usually take place in October. Applications are expected to open in March.
Gladstone’s Library Writers in Residence
program began in 2011. Built in 1902, Gladstone’s Library is the UK’s only residential library. Four residencies are offered each year with each writer staying at the Library for a month. The Writers in Residence are asked to keep a blog about their stay, as well as running a creative writing workshop. Residents receive full room and board, reimbursement for travel expenses and a small stipend of £100 per week. Applications close on 13 March.
Jack Kerouac Writer in Residence Project
provides four residencies a year to writers living anywhere in the world. Each residency consists of approximately a three-month stay in Orlando, Florida, in the cottage where Jack Kerouac wrote his novel Dharma Bums. Utilities and a food stipend of US$1000 are included. Applications for the 2020-2021 residencies close on 15 March.
Norton Island Residency
is located in a remote, rustic wilderness in Maine, halfway between Mount Desert National Park and Campobello Island. A committee of independent jurors will select 16 writers (from fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction) for inclusion in the program which runs in June and July. If accepted, a $125 residency fee is payable, though a small number of scholarships are available. Applications close on 15 March.
Varuna’s Writing Fire, Writing Drought Fellowships
will be awarded to five Australian writers from regional NSW and outer-western. The aim is to support writers to develop new work in response to the drought and bushfire crisis. Each fellowship includes a one-week residential fellowship at Varuna, uninterrupted time to write in a own private studio and all meals. Applications open on 10 February and close on 27 March.
Ireland Funds Monaco Residential Bursaries
have been established to enable literary and academic writers born or living in Ireland to pursue a current project during a one-month residency at The Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. Recipients receive flights, accommodation, a weekly subsistence payment and a €1300 honorarium. Applications close on 30 March.
Hugo House
is located in Seattle. Its writer-in-residence program offers private writing offices and a monthly stipend of $500 per month for a period of nine months. Applicants should have a specific artistic project they are working on during their residency (e.g., developing a manuscript for publication) and should have a special interest in helping writers become better writers and fostering an appreciation of the craft. Applications close on 31 March.
Eliza So Finish-Your-Book Fellowship
aims to give a Native American writer time and solitude to help finish a book that is already in progress. The fellowship includes accommodation in a private house on the Clark Fork river trail in Montana, along with a $1000 for food and travel. Applications close on 5 April.
MacDowell Colony Fellowships
support residences of up to eight weeks for writers & other artists. The colony is located in Peterborough, New Hampshire and has 32 unique individual artists studios. Applications are considered in multiple rounds per year. The 2020 deadlines are 15 April and 15 September.
International Literary Residency in Ulyanovsk
is open to writers and artists from the UNESCO Cities of Literature network. The residency includes one month’s accomodation, a €1000 scholarship and a range of public events. Applications should have an interest in Russian culture and literature and at least one published book. Applications close on 30 April.
Wales Writer in Residence
comes with a bursary of £12,000 and offers two placements over a year – at National Theatre Wales and BBC Cymru Wales – and a guaranteed broadcast credit on BBC Radio 4 or BBC Sounds. This opportunity is open to writers who can represent the culture of Wales with authenticity (for example they may be from, or have lived or worked in Wales). Applications close on 11 May.
Anne LaBastille Memorial Writers Residency
offers a two-week residency in October to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers at a lodge on Twitchell Lake in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, New York. A total of six residencies are offered: three from the region and three from anywhere in the world. There is a $30 application fee. Applications open on 16 April and close on 21 May.
Associates of the Boston Public Library’s Children’s Writer in Residence Fellowship
Boston Public Library was established in 1848 and is the oldest large municipal library in the United States. The Library’s Children’s Writer in Residence Program provides an emerging children’s writer with the financial support and space needed to complete one literary work for children or young adults. The writer in residence receives a $20,000 stipend and a private office in the Central Library. Applicants cannot have published more than three books to date. Applications are expected to close in June.
Writers Omi at Ledig House
has hosted hundreds of authors and translators, representing more than fifty countries, including Gary Shteyngart, Kiran Desai and Colum McCann. Ledig House located in Ghent, New York, two and a half hours from New York City and guests may select a residency of one week to two months. Application are expected to close in July.
Hedgebrook Writers in Residence Program
is located on Whidbey Island, about thirty-five miles north-west of Seattle. The program is open to all women writers, whether their work has been published yet or not. Applications opened will open in mid-June and close in late July.
Writing Between the Vines
offers writers a space to work in multiple vineyards in North America. Funded through application fees and in partnership with wineries, the program provides writers the time to focus on works in progress or cultivate new ideas in residencies of up to one week in length at no charge. Applications for 2021 are expected to open in July.
Scotland Writing Residency
is located in Brora, a coastal village in the east of Sutherland in the Highland area of Scotland. The writer resides, for one week during summer or fall, in a furnished and recently renovated, traditional croft cottage, containing three bedrooms. The residency does not come with a cash prize. The residency has a rolling deadline; the current cut-off date is 25 August.
Jentel Artist Residency Program
is located on a 1000 acre working cattle ranch 20 miles south-east of Sheridan, Wyoming. It offers individuals a supportive environment in which to further their creative development. Applications for Summer/Fall Residencies close in January and applications for Winter/Spring Residencies closes on 15 September.
New York Public Library’s Cullman Center Fellowships
is an international fellowship program open to people whose work will benefit from access to the New York Public Library’s collections housed at its main branch on Fifth Avenue. Novelists, playwrights and poets are invited to apply, along with academics and independent researchers. Fellows can be from anywhere in the world. A stipend of up to $70,000 is granted to each fellow, along with an office, a computer and full access to the Library’s physical and electronic resources. Applications for 2021/22 fellowships are expected to close in September.
Siena Art Institute’s Summer Residency Program
awards accomplished professional artists and writers the opportunity to stay for a month in the historic city of Siena, in the heart of Tuscany, Italy. The month-long Summer Residency Program grants resident artists a studio space at the Siena Art Institute and a private one-bedroom apartment in the historic city centre of Siena, as well as flight compensation for getting to and from Italy. Applications for 2021 residencies close on 30 September.
Wallace Stegner House
is located in Eastend, Saskatchewan. The Wallace Stegner House residency program accepts writers for stays from one week to up to eleven months. A rental fee of $250 is payable and includes all utilities. Writers and other artists from around the world are invited to apply. Applications requesting a stay of three weeks or more which are received before 30 September will be given first consideration.
Denali National Park Artist-in-Residence Program
is dedicated to exploring new ways for visitors to experience Alaska’s Denali National Park. From hundreds of competitive applications each year, approximately six accomplished writers, artists and composers are invited by the park superintendent to spend ten days in Denali at their own expense the following winter or summer. Visits include a permit for limited access along the Denali Park Road and time alone at a historic ranger patrol cabin. Applications are expected to open on 1 May and close on 30 September
Faber Residency
Faber, the Arts, Sciences and Humanities Residency of Catalonia in Olot, is a place for writers, translators, artists of diverse disciplines, scholars and scientists to stay together and to work on their personal projects. Accommodation, a workspace and some meals are provided but the residency does not cover travel costs.
Write On
is Door County, Wisconsin, welcomes applications from emerging and established writers in any contemporary literary genre. Each resident received a private bedroom and access to The Coop, the writing studio of the late writer Norbert Blei. Residencies last for between one week and one month and applications are accepted year-round.
Wellstone Center in the Redwoods
offers four writing fellowships per year, as well as week-long writing residencies and an emerging writers residencies. The Center is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, four miles from the Pacific Ocean. Applications are considered year round.
Shakespeare and Company
is an English-language bookshop in the heart of Paris, on the banks of the Seine, opposite Notre-Dame. Since it was established in 1951, Shakespeare and Company has thrown open its doors to all sorts of writers, artists, and intellectuals who sought refuge. In exchange, Tumbleweeds (as guests came to be called) are asked only to “read a book a day,” help out in the shop for a couple of hours, and write a single-page autobiography for its archives. The bookshop has housed an estimated 30,000 Tumbleweeds.
Hosking Houses Trust
located in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, seeks to appoint women writers over the age of 40 who need time in which to start, continue or complete interesting or innovative work in English dealing with any subject. Private accommodation is provided in Church Cottage and a bursary of up to £1000 per calendar month is provided. Applications are accepted year-round and the residencies are usually booked a minimum of six months in advance.
Fish Factory Creative Centre
is located in Stöðvarfjörður, a remote village in the East fjords of Iceland. It offers residencies of up to six months to writers as well as other artists. Fees apply which cover studio space, accommodation, access to facilities and workshops and transfers from the local airport.
We will be adding to this list throughout the year, so please check back for updates. For more regular news about residencies and fellowships, as well as other opportunities for writers, follow Aerogramme Writers’ Studio on Facebook, Twitter. and Instagram.
