I spent two weeks in March in Amherst, Virginia as a writing resident at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided, and once-a-week housekeeping is included. Residents are writers, visual artists, and composers, and there are about 20 or so present at one time. Everyone has their own bedroom and bathroom, as well as their own studio which is in another building (I LOVED having a separate studio space).
How I spent my time at the writer’s residency
I wrapped up 90% of my clients’ work before I got there, so I could focus on my own writing while there. In my head, I was gon’ get there and take off writing. Aht aht! First off, my body wanted to catch up on rest. Second, I wanted to explore my new surroundings. So I logged outta social media and left my phone in my bedroom most of the day. I’d check out the buildings and sculptures.
Left the grounds to visit the nearby Sweetbriar College. The students were out for spring break, but I wanted to check out the cabin they had onsite that once belonged to the enslaved people who lived and worked there. The burial ground was another stop, and it included both black and indigenous people who worked, lived, and died on the land. I also visited the Monocan Museum. Whenever I spend time in a place, I research who it first belonged to. Amherst belonged to the Monacan Nation. They still have their old schoolhouse on site, the present-day church, and a museum. What makes them and that land particularly special is because when the government forced most native people off their land and onto reservations out west, the Monacan people went up into their mountains instead. They’re one of few tribes who still live on their original land.
I took one book with me, Zora Neale Hurston’s I Love Myself When I’m Laughing and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive. They had a huge bookshelf fulla past writing residents’ books, so I grabbed Louise Meriwether’s copy of Shadow Dancing. I’d read Louise’s book while in my bedroom and Zora’s while in my studio. So that first week, I did a lotta reading, napping, and checking out different places on and off-site.
Spending time in the woods was another favorite part. They have several trails in the woods on the property. The blue trail was the shortest, and you follow it by the swipes of blue paint on every 4-5 trees. Being out there is always so grounding for me. I hear from God most clear when completely in nature.
Making friends during the writing residency
My FAVORITE part of the residency was the people. In your welcome packet, they give you a sheet of names of people whose time there will intersect with yours at some point. I asked a few people if they researched folk while still there or if they waited until they got home. Most waited but a few wanted to know who they were surrounded by. For the most part, I waited, but I looked a couple people up.
Every few days, a batch of people would leave and more would arrive, so you’re constantly introducing yourself. Initial questions asked: what’s your name, where you from, what’s your art, and is this your first time here. Most fellows at this particular residency had been there at least twice. One had been coming since 1985! Over 30 times, she said!
I had an after-dinner walking crew, a yoga crew, a board game crew (we mainly played So Clover; it’s SO fun), a late night crew which mainly consisted of the Millennials, and the writers in general were our own lil crew. It was nice. One night, after yoga, we were walking back to the artist studio and caught a freaking aurora borealis. That was my last night there too and I was already feeling a heavy energy, maybe from the full moon that night or maybe from the fact that I was experiencing a lot of transitions in my life and leaving VCCA felt like a tangible representation of all those closed doors. Maybe both. Felt like something deep shifted inside of me that night.
A Short Story I Wrote During the Residency
Click the audio above to listen to it. I’m working on a book about nonconforming Black women from slavery days all the way to the present. During the residency, I decided to make it a book of short stories. I started my writing career writing fiction, so it felt good to dig my toes back in it.
Re-Integrating into Everyday Life after the Residency
To my knowledge, I was the only one there on my very first residency anywhere. So I gotta lotta heads up about how VCCA differs from other residencies but also how reintegrating once your time is up can be kind of difficult. I wouldn’t call mine difficult, but it was exhausting. I slept the entire flight home and the entire next day. It took about a week at home before I had the energy and mind to start writing again. That’s kind of a good thing though. It’s like I walked out of a dream and back to reality. So often while I was at VCCA, I wondered if it was possible to create a reality like this. The only time I stressed was the day before I agreed to share something I wrote, and another day when I was running late for yoga class. That’s it.
I hope to be able to do a writing residency at least a year. I think it’s critical for the artist’s spirit. Get away from home, from your regular degular, into a new environment surrounded by other artists and carve out time to reconnect with your spirit and your craft. That’s it.
Learn more about VCCA here and if you have specific questions about it, ask me.