The Solo Residency

Most writers residencies introduce the writer to a group setting. You can write for as many (or as few) hours as you want, and you also have access to a peer group of writers who are also working, whether it's new work or works in (long) progress.

For many writers this is the dream: a quiet writing refuge, meals provided, and the chance to meet peers--possibly new friends--in a nurturing environment.

Then there's the solo residency. I've just returned from my first: Writers at the Eyrie in Williamsburg.

See the top floor? That's where I was--around the back. It's a beautiful old building complete with dicey radiators, Alice Through the Looking Glass cambered floors, an old (perfectly functional) stove, and a comfy bed. And a mouse, the kind with the tail. I'll get to that.

I wanted a place where I could submerge myself completely in a tricky novel restructuring binge. And that's what I got. The hosts, poet Margot Farrington and artist Tony Martin are wonderfully generous, engaged, and supportive people. When the mouse arrived in pursuit of my breakfast nuts, Tony leapt into action with a mouse-trap and, within a day or so the interloper was apprehended and removed. I threw the nuts out. Margot and Tony took me to dinner, welcomed me into their apartment on the third floor, where we talked about art and poetry and the weirderies of galleries and publishers. I will always be grateful to Tony for his gem of a discussion about Mondrian's lines and space.

Two and a half weeks of immersion provided a more-or-less-complete-well-I'm-still-tweaking-it first draft. I was able to start when I woke up and have my meals at my laptop (or at a neighborhood eatery) when I wanted to. No phone, no wifi, no tugging at the edges of my attention--all the natural interruptions that occur when I'm at home.

I was also able to take the subway or walk across the fabulous Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan. I met friends for lunch or dinner for restorative chats about anything but writing.

Okay. So it's New York, a city unlike anywhere else in the world. These delights aren't available if you have a solo residency in the woods or some other remote natural environment.

However, flying solo, I had the gift of complete, deep, and extended focus that, I would argue, might not have happened at a residency where there are other artists.

I still like social residencies and hope to attend more in the future. But for this specific time and place in my writing, The Writers Eyrie was the absolute best choice.