Deadline time is approaching for the August WCR Writing Fellowship. This is a writer’s dream, so spread the word – or apply now yourself.
Writing on the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Wallace Baine might have gone a tad overboard in saying that for a writer the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods is “kind of like heaven” – but we enjoyed the thought.
“Put yourself, for a moment, in the shoes of Michael Weinreb, the most recent writer-in-residence at Wellstone,” Baine wrote last March. “During his month-long stay, he woke every morning in a serene and cozy cottage surrounded by books. From his small front porch, he could gaze west over the treeline at the glistening ocean in the distance. … He could also wander through the fragrant, redwood-thick acreage, lost in daydreamy contemplation or creative focus. In between, ideally, he would find a comfortable perch with his writing tools of choice, and write.”
We offer a setting of spectacular beauty sure to inspire any writer not only to find new directions to make progress with a writing project, but also a chance to pamper yourself with a break from many of the pointless distractions of day to day life. A visiting writing fellow can enjoy many hours of solitude, either in the Library House, a book-filled cabin on the verge of the forest, with no electricity or running water, where she or he will be staying, or a walk out on our private trails through the redwoods or elsewhere on our 4.7 acres of beautiful land, four miles up from the Pacific Ocean near Santa Cruz, California. Or the visiting writing fellow can also enjoy joining the permanent residents of the WCR for our delicious common meals, prepared with fresh fruit and vegetables from our own organic gardens, eggs from our hens and milk from our goats. Twice a week we have morning yoga and on Tuesday night the visiting writer reads at OpenMic night.
The fellowship does not include transportation expenses to come to us, but we will pick you up at a local airport on the day of your arrival. Writing fellows are encouraged to do some work in our gardens now and then, to experience firsthand a connection with nature, and to help with the preparation of meals. We ask fellows to focus on one major writing project when they are here and to make that a high priority. We hope there is time for regular walks on the trails and of course to engage us in conversation, especially when we all read from our writing for Tuesday Night OpenMic Night. But we also encourage fellows to be single-minded about nourishing their writing; if you want to be anti-social for days at a time and spend all your time writing, that’s fine, too.
To apply, please email a letter of 500 words explaining your interest and why you believe you would be an asset to our community; as well as one sample of your writing, between 1,000 and 2,000 words long; and a resume listing your work experience and publications. Please let us know how you heard about us and the fellowship. Preference will be given to writers with at least one book published.
Mail your application to fellowship@wellstoneredwoods.org or to 858 Amigo Road, Soquel, CA 95073 by 5 p.m. on June 29, 2015, to be considered for our August fellowship. The winner will be notified by July 3.
FROM OUR PAST FELLOWS
I did not immediately start work on my novel-in-progress. Instead a short story I had been gestating for a while emerged within one week of the start of the residency. I found time to read two slim books by Gabriel García Marquez from the Library House, a wooden house on the edge of the mountains which became my home for about a month. In a way the Library House is a Library with a bed so I was surrounded by amazing collections of Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, Carl Hiaasen and books by TC Boyle, John Irving and Anna Akhmatova. It was at the Library House that I found the book The Writing Life which affected me deeply. I pored over the essays and interviews by America’s most honored authors. I saw through their eyes and in many ways identified with their pains, hopes, aspirations and fears. I was humbled by the fact that the authors I read and admired were not without shortcomings. They were writers like me
I relished the daily the communal evening meals where we traded real-life stories and talked about ridiculous things. I asked questions. I asked annoying questions. I made friends. I gathered stories that I would process into fiction someday. My most productive times were the times I embraced the unforeseen, and relieved myself of all responsibility for my creative outcome. At Wellstone I experienced the unexpected. That was what I needed and now I can say that I am on the road to recovery. Wellstone gave me wings to fly.
– Samuel Kolawole, May 2015 WCR Fellow, who came to us from Nigeria.
The strange thing is the Library House seems much bigger from inside than it does from the outside. This could be the way it’s set in a hollow, with the hillside running down from its deck. Or it could be the view – you look out over a forest of trees that leads straight to the ocean. Or maybe it feels big because of all the words waiting here. Encouraging words from Anne Lamott, advising us to just sit down, hammer out that Shitty First Draft, don’t worry, just type. Words from Ann Packer, who asks whether we can take care of those who rely on us and take care of our creative selves at the same time. Words from Walt Whitman:
Facing west from California’s shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound.
That’s all of us, seeking what is yet unfound. Some do this on canvas, looking for the clear, true colors that mark our time here. Those of us who love the Library House put down words, and know they fall far from the mark. But still, we put down words.
When my fingers refuse to assemble what I need, when every letter I strike is wrong, when I’m afraid of looking foolish, of wasting time, of not being enough, then I imagine the words to come. Not from me. From the people who will stay here, who will love this view and this room built around books as much as I do. Although we write in solitude, none of us are here alone.
– Ann Krueger Spivack, November 2014 WCR Fellow
It’s been a week since I left the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, where I spent the month of July living and working in the Library House as the Wellstone’s inaugural writing fellow. During these past seven days many people have asked me to describe my experience there. I tell them, of course, about how much progress I made on my book, about my simple, beautiful cabin and the power of solitude as a creative conduit. I came to the Wellstone to write, and write I did. But I left the Wellstone with more than a fistful of chapters. I left as part of a creative community, a community of dreamers and strivers dedicated to nourishing mind, body, and spirit with, simply put, what matters. Ideas and encouragement. Garden vegetables and fresh goat’s milk. Hikes through the forest. Honest conversation. Progress can be measured in many ways, and I measure mine in terms of words written, to be sure, but also bonds forged. I don’t know how I got so lucky. I do know how much I’m looking forward to going back.
– Joan Anderman, August 2014 WCR Fellow
ABOUT THE WELLSTONE CENTER
Founded in 2012 by Sarah Ringler and Steve Kettmann, the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods was named to San Francisco Magazine‘s 2013 “Best of the Bay” issue for its weekend workshops. We are a writers’ retreat that offers regular workshops and residencies; we also publish books through our Wellstone Books imprint.