I love to travel. I also love curling up somewhere warm, preferably in front of a cosy fire, with a notebook & a stack of reading material. Since the beginning of 2019, I’ve managed to combine these two things, with a number of international writing residencies.
Check out my blog post about it – A Few Thoughts On: Writing Residencies.
Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre
Perth, Australia, 2022
Out on the edge of the bush but with a view over the city, this little cabin was an ideal place to spend two weeks immersing myself in a first draft of a novel. Read my blog post from the residency here.
Writers’ House of Georgia
Tbilisi, Georgia, 2022
With its elegant architecture & dappled courtyard, the Writers’ House is an oasis of quiet in the heart of Georgia’s capital city. This 10-day residency was a prize in the Desperate Literature Competition, with travel funded by the de Groot Foundation. Read more about it here.
Heinrich Böll Cottage
Achill Island, Ireland, 2021
A cottage on the west coast of Ireland, on the edge of the peat bog and with a view of the sea. Funded by Mayo County Council and Arts Council of Ireland. Read more about the residency here.
Gladstone’s Library
Hawarden, Wales, 2021
The UK’s only residential library, Gladstone’s Library provides an opportunity to work for a month at a little desk in a nook among the books. Find out more about my residency experience here.
Hawthornden Castle
Outside Edinburgh, Scotland, 2020
Hawthornden is the writing world’s worst-kept secret: a medieval castle, with a rule of silence during the day. Read more about my month-long residency here.
Passa Porta
Brussels, Belgium, 2019
In collaboration with the Flemish Literature Fund & the National Centre for Writing (UK), I stayed in an elegant Brussels apartment for 4 weeks, writing poetry. Here’s the online essay I wrote for Passa Porta.
MacDowell Fellowship
New Hampshire, USA, 2019
At the start of 2019, during an Arts Council-funded research trip to the US, I spent 3 weeks writing poetry in a beautiful cabin in the woods, where my lunch was delivered to my door each day in a picnic basket. Read more about it here.
The Wordsworth Trust
Grasmere, England, 2019
Having worked with the Wordsworth Trust since 2013, I was delighted to spend a month as Poet in Residence, living opposite Dove Cottage, during the sunniest February I can remember. Read about my experience here.
Katie Hale 