GARDEN HOUSE WRITING RESIDENCY
2022 & 2023
The Garden House Writing Residency: 2022 & 2023
brought together multi-racial, intergenerational, mostly queer, mostly women of color writers from the Deep South, Southwest, Midwest, West Coast, and the Northeast who share a commitment to collective wellness. Despite barriers, we are working with all our might to complete and release more of our creative work to the world.
The Garden House Writing Residency creates dedicated time in a peaceful environment for Fellows to pour energy into our respective writing projects. The Garden House in Wellfleet, MA (Cape Cod) has been offered as a gift for fellows to come together as a way to create access to something that is often out of reach due to financial strains, intense workloads, hefty family obligations, and other obstacles. As the Organizer of The Garden House Writing Residency, I have created what it is that I need and have extended an invitation in the form of a fellowship to other writers who share that need.
Core tenets are devotion to writing, tending visions, presence, and care.
Thanks to community support, nine women writers have been able to experience the Garden House Writing Residency throughout the first two years of the program!
Thank you to the many people
who contributed prizes & purchased tickets in our 2022 & 2023 Phenomenal Raffles, bought a supper plate, or made donations. Together, we were able to cover all expenses of the residency, including travel stipends for a combined nine fellows!
"It was a tremendous, beautiful, healing space for me. The quality of that time and space is something I hold close. I came into the residency worn out at a deep level and I've realized recently that that particular fatigue was healed while I was at Garden House. Nothing but gratitude and love for the experience and the people I experienced it with."
"Please, don't ever stop this. Even if it remains sort of a secret thing...just keep allowing other people to be brave in their writing."
"I feel the planning and execution was stellar! We all have room to grow but what you did was beyond my wildest dreams. You considered each participant every step of the way."
"The residency was key to giving me the space to tackle a big question around my manuscript project; to be in conversation, to have many hours to walk, think, write...I just really needed that expansiveness to allow myself to transition with this project. The centering of an opening ritual and the altar was key to this process for me as well."
"I, who can be super private about sharing things, LOVED the opening ritual."
"My Garden House Fellowship experience was illuminating. It reintroduced me to what it means to build from the inside out. The morning I was preparing to go home was full of words like awakening and freedom and spiritual and rebirth."
"I felt another expansion in just being myself without apology."
"I was inspired, I was challenged, and ultimately loved into proclaiming - I am a writer. This fellowship was something magical and special."
"I felt a sense of kinship and sisterhood and i will be forever grateful for all the gifts ya'll brought to the table, all the honesty, vulnerability, play, laughter and insight and damn good meals. I am inspired to continue to nurture these powerful connections."
" I had some immense personal growth moments and got to some deep rooted stuff that needed attention, which also unlocked some much needed hope for the future."
" I had some immense personal growth moments and got to some deep rooted stuff that needed attention, which also unlocked some much needed hope for the future."
"Finishing my book was an amazing experience."
"This was such a pivotal process for me in inspiring me to pursue my writing deeper. It really helped me to build a practice to access and unlock my creativity, that I can refer back to. I also got clarity on the direction I want to go and how I want to approach my first publication."
"I loved the group rituals we did, the altar building, the salon - which I felt really deeply bonded us - and also the way in which you facilitated and held space Shana - that was truly a learning experience and inspiring to me."
