When I was 21, I met the poet Robert Creeley after he gave a reading. “I want to be a writer,” I told him giddily. I had stacks of notebooks and drafts. “What do I do next?”
“Well, keep reading and writing everyday,” he replied. “And go to the Vermont Studio Center.” This latter suggestion was so thrillingly concrete. I looked it up: a residency for the creative arts. Two weeks with my own studio and adjacency to other creative writers at work. That winter I went, taking the train up through the snowy mountains into northern Vermont. I taped drafts up all over the walls of my studio. I wrote for hours, then took long wooded walks through the snow. I wrote again. I walked. I swapped drafts with other writers and found mentors. When I slept, my dreams loosened the language and the ideas. In the mornings, they snowed onto the page, the book a new wood I walked inside.
Over the last twenty-five years, as I embarked on an academic and creative writing life, I have remembered what Creeley said. I did write and read everyday, at least in slivers, as I juggled doing a PhD then becoming a professor, with its many demands. Then, when I needed absolutely unbroken time for my momentum, I went to a residency. I wrote large portions of all three of my books––academic and poetry––at residencies, in those shelters of silence, community, and generativity. Most of the writers I met were writing novels or poetry. It was very rare to meet another scholar.
What would it look like, I wondered, to create a residency especially for academics?
This year at Field Studio, Ro and I have created just such a residency for a scholar in the social sciences or humanities working on a monograph––a slice of time apart, in a beautiful bothy (Scottish stone cottage) on the Isle of Mull in Scotland. The residency space, as well as a store of wood to keep you warm (you’ll need to be able to light a fire!), is funded by us––there is no charge for accommodation.
When I went to the Vermont Studio Center all those years ago, I was lucky enough to find impromptu mentors through chance conversations. At Field Studio, the mentorship is built in. At the start of your residency, you will come to dinner at our house, adjacent to the bothy, and talk to us about your project and your goals for this writing time. During your stay, you will receive developmental feedback from us on your writing. When you take breaks, walk in the woods and hills––by yourself or with us if you like company. When you’re tired from writing, come to our house for dinner. We’ve dried all the mushrooms we foraged in the summer, and we’ll make you a stew.
The residency will run for a period of time from 27 December 2026 and 31 January 2027 (dates are flexible within that period) and accommodation and developmental feedback is funded by us. Travel and all other meals are self-funded. The bothy has some specificities about it that might make it unsuitable for some people, so we strongly encourage you to read all the information on our bothy webpage to make sure it’s right for you. Scotland in winter can be intense–-restorative and wild at once, and this is a remote place. We want to make sure our guest is comfortable.
For more information, head to our residency page and sign up there for an application pack. We can’t wait to read about you and your project, and perhaps meet you in Mull this winter.