In 2017, two writers (poets, prose writers, playwrights, translators all eligible) will be invited to Dickinson House as fellows for two weeks each. Our past fellows have had some amazing things to say about staying here (here are Aria Aber’s words, and here are Natashia Deón’s), as have residents like Erin Kate Ryan, who was here in October 2015. We are enjoying reading the work that has come in—especially the letters, which give us a sense of who applicants are and how well they’d fit here—and are looking forward to sharing the anonymized applications with our jury. Want to come write in Belgium for free for two weeks in 2017? Application details are here. Apply through Submittable here. Have independent means and want to make residencies/fellowships possible for other writers and artists? Information on fee-paying residencies is here.
Willie Lin, whose chapbook Lesser Birds of Paradiseis just out, writes about where—and the atmospheric quality of where—she writes.
When thinking about where I write, I come to the notion that, for me, the particularity of where is not truly separate from the when or the how. I prefer to work where or when it is dim. At twilight, during my commute. In the overflow annex of a coffeehouse that gets little natural light. Bleary-eyed at my desk in the small hours. Anywhere on a stormy day. I like solitude without silence. The ambient darkness seems to lend a privacy to the act and an appealing moodiness to the proceedings, as if I’m approaching some secret attic of longing. Time dilates. My handwriting suffers. I like the accidents that lurk there. I write on the backs of receipts, on bookmarks, and lately, more and more, in the Notes app on my phone. (On my phone, I mistype broken as borker,and instantly my mood lifts.) I transcribe and mis-transcribe what I have to my laptop.
In the past decade, I’ve lived in nine places in six cities. In the current place, I’ve made an attempt at creating an office I’d want to work in. I’ve built an oversized desk that I share with my partner, who is also a writer. The walls have been painted and chalked and papered with a pages from magazines and writing exercises that we’d clattered on typewriters. I bought a rug to soften the room and hung curtains over the lone window that faces a brick wall and lets in almost no light during the day. All these tasks I approached with a stupid faith because the truth is that writing has never been about convenience. I’ll find it wherever it is.
This year there will be no open reading period. I want to concentrate on the books MIEL has already put into the world, and on the planned anthology. If you are interested in supporting the press in the coming year, please consider a purchase in our shop. If you want to send work, the anthology is open for work until mid-July 2016.
You can use the discount code NOOPEN16 for a 50% discount on any books purchased in June.
When thinking about where I write, I come to the notion that, for me, the particularity of where is not truly separate from the when or the how. I prefer to work where or when it is dim. At twilight, during my commute. In the overflow annex of a coffeehouse