This opportunity is amazing: I have been writing every day, peeling into the layers of my memoir to uncover new connections. On the days I step away to work on something different, to take a break, even more connecting threads appear. Back to memoir-in-progress. At last it’s cooking.

A New International Residency for Writers

The International Lamplight Residency is a collaborative project sponsored by Write On Door County in Wisconsin, and Varuna, The Writers’ House in New South Wales, Australia. It supports six writers who have been residents at Write On or Varuna. The digital residency is a week of writing, critique and sharing. To be in this first cohort is an opportunity I am grateful for.

My Time at Write On, Door County

When my son got accepted to a college in eastern Wisconsin two years ago, I discovered Wisconsin’s writing communities. I applied for a residency at Write On, Door County. Their mission is worth supporting. They reach out to adults and students, beginning writers and established authors. They are completing the new classroom and writing center. Here is the current residence across the road from the new center:

The Write On residence house

A week working at the Write On residence in Fish Creek last September rejuvenated my project. Teaching a class on memoir writing in that wonderful space allowed me to connect with local writers. I walked, explored cheese barns, sampled smoked whitefish from Charlie’s Smokehouse. Bought cherry jam. I hiked the Eagle Trail at Peninsula State Park. Every day was gorgeous.

Evening along one of the trails behind the new Writing Center.

On my last day in Door County, I rode the Island Clipper ferry from the point at Gills Rock to Washington Island. The 2019 Washington Island Literary Festival was a robust and intimate day of programs with poet Bao Phi,  ,storyteller extraordinaire Luis Alberto Urrea and others.

Leaving on the Island Clipper Ferry

Opportunities grow

That week at Write On now blooms into this follow-up residency. I’ll meet and work with fellow residents and these wonderful writers and editors.  To share my project with an Anni Liu at Graywolf Press is a great motivator. Good things happen when we center our work. The seven days at Write On, Door County are growing like the blueberry bushes I planted this spring, putting down new roots.