Imagine waking up in a beautiful setting where meals are provided, and your only expectation is to create.

Or maybe you dream of using your writing to connect with a community, leading a journaling workshop or introducing readers to a piece of artwork or historic happening.

Or perhaps you have a special project that you’re trying to figure out how to fund.

A writer or artist residency might be one way to turn these musings into your job (at least for a little while).

I live in a small city in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and for the last three years, the Roanoke Arts Commission has named and funded several artist-in-residence programs for a variety of city agencies and organizations. There have been neighborhood groups with artists-in-residences, the housing authority has an artist-in-residence, our zoo has an artist-in-residence. The term “artist” is defined broadly and usually includes writers of all kinds.

Additionally, regional leaders have (off and on since 2015) sought a writer who is paid to ride our city bus system and produce a book of poetry, essays, or stories from their residency. Our region’s hospital also pays visual artists, dancers, and writers to serve as “resource artists.”

Maybe your local hospitals, museums, city or county arts programs, or regional planning commissions also offer some kind of artist-in-residence program. In the past, the National Parks System, the Bureau of Land Management, and Amtrak have offered writers residencies, though many of those programs are currently paused.

The website Artist Communities Alliance provides a directory of a wide range of artist residencies in the US and across the world. Nearly all of them include writers. This newsletter lifts up residency opportunities each week in its Grants/Fellowship/Crowdfunding section.

There are lots of online resources to find residencies and help in the application process, but it can be time consuming to sift through the opportunities. A word of warning: Read residency descriptions closely before undertaking the work of applying to make sure you qualify for the residency and that the details of what is required suit you.

Not convinced that applying for residencies is worth the effort? Try thinking outside the box to create your own writer’s residency.

Recently, Portland, Oregon-based writer Amy Stewart detailed how to appoint yourself an artist-in-residence of anywhere you like for as long as you like. The response was so overwhelming, she ended up writing more than a dozen posts with further examples of artists of all kinds who had created self-made residencies.

Here’s another idea. If there’s a museum, nonprofit, or garden that aligns with your writing subject or style, you could propose a writer’s residency to that organization’s leaders. It could benefit you both.

What’s it like to be an artist-in-residence? Residencies can be very unique. Carilion Clinic’s Healing Arts program has included selecting and printing poems that are left in hospital waiting rooms; staging spoken word performances at the hospital; and simply spending time with patients, creating alongside them to help pass the time.

One project paid for by the Roanoke Arts Commission was the creation of a book called Our Green Spaces, Our Stories, where writers and artists worked together to document a neighborhood’s parks through history, photographs, paintings, poems, and more.

The secret to a successful writer’s residency is to have a clear set of goals and a creative idea, plus, the persistence to keep searching for a way to bring your residency to life.

BIO – Christina Nifong is a freelance writer based in Roanoke, VA. Find more of her work at christinanifong.com.
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