This newly created two-week residency is meant for writers at work on a novel or story collection primarily set in California. In most cases writers will have made major progress on a manuscript. We are looking for seasoned writers with considerable publishing credits and good prospects of publishing the work in progress who still need to make a last major push toward finishing their book. This residency will offer solitude and immersion in a beautiful, inspiring setting, as well as the opportunity to socialize with other creative minds, have community meals from Monday to Friday and take part in common activities such as yoga and nature hikes, but also receive an hourlong consultation with Wellstone Books publisher Steve Kettmann.

Here are some of the key features of the residency:

• resident writers will be staying two weeks in the luxurious Zen Suite (pictured at right), with its own entrance and own small balcony looking down on Monterey Bay four miles in the distance, or up into the forests that surround our grounds
• residents take part in our Tuesday night OpenMic sessions, a great chance to read from your work and get warm feedback in an intimate, nonthreatening setting
• residents cook one community meal a week for a group of five to eight people, or if they prefer, work in the garden for approximately three hours with one of our resident interns.
• residents receive a one-hour consultation on their project with co-director Steve Kettmann, Publisher of Wellstone Books and author or co-author of nine books, including four New York Times bestsellers (subject to Steve’s travel schedule; he’s usually here at WCR, but does take work trips from time to time)
• rate for two weeks – $900 – evening meals included five days a week.

To apply – or for more information – please write to Sarah Ringler, Wellstone Center co-director, at sarah@wellstoneredwoods.org. We focus on targeting people who we think we can help, so we ask interested applicants to send us a short letter (200 to 300 words) explaining their interest and describing the writing project they wish to pursue, telling us about any published work they’d like to highlight – and including an excerpt of the project they would pursue at Wellstone (around 1,000 words, preferably). That way we can evaluate if we think it’s a good fit.

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, and has been extolled in the San Jose Mercury News as “kind of like heaven” and in the San Francisco Chronicle as a “the kind of place where inspiration seems to just hang in the air, waiting to be inhaled.” Our books, published through our Wellstone Books imprint, have attracted attention at the New Yorker and in The New York Times. The Wellstone Center helps create the writers of tomorrow and helps free the writer living inside all of us. We do this by bringing people together in a tranquil and peaceful environment to provide them with new ideas and inspiration and also by publishing a select number of books through our Wellstone Books imprint.

TESTIMONIALS ABOUT THE WELLSTONE CENTER IN THE REDWOODS

 I knew my weeklong writing residency would provide me with a room of my own, but I couldn’t have imagined the creatively charged environment that Steve and Sarah have created at the Wellstone Center or what a profound effect it would have on my writing and my ability to write. Having the time and space to think, surrounded by a talented group of writers and a stunning Northern California rainforest, I had the clarity to delve into my novel in an entirely new way. I can honestly say I have never been more productive in my writing life.

– Bronwen Hruska, Novelist and Publisher, Soho Press

You know that quiet street you often drive to clear your head and gather your thoughts? Or that coffee shop that knows you well enough to know how you like your latte and how you like to be left alone to read or write? It’s like that one room in your home where the door shuts tight, the walls are insulated just enough, or the space warrants a level of privacy. I don’t know about you, but I have all of these places and they are sacred, nearly too sacred to share. To that list of sacred places, where there’s no time or space, I could easily add the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods. I’ve had a very turbulent year of passing; people, time and opportunities included. After searching far and wide for a place to retreat, I found WCR. And with great preparation, and patience from my clients, I became as selfish as possible for seven days and gave myself back to myself.  Maybe you will write, from sunup to sundown. Maybe you will read and run through the redwoods. Maybe you walk barefoot on the land and in your mind. Maybe you will lose connection to the outside world and strengthen connection to your creative spirit. Feel free, feel completely free to create like your life depends on it. Because it does.

–Shalishah Franklin