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Whether it’s a daylong festival, a weekend conference, or a four-week residency, there are countless options for writers looking for a retreat. We rounded up more than eighty free conferences, residencies, and festivals across the country so that you can find the literary getaway that’s right for you—at little to no cost.
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At the Sewall House retreat in Island Falls, Maine, the practice of yoga opens up new possibilities in the craft of writing.
As part of a plan to revitalize Detroit’s literary community, the nonprofit Write a House will begin awarding writers with refurbished houses in the Motor City this fall.
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E-book companies Scribd and Smashwords have inked a global partnership agreement; a new program based in Detroit—Write A House—is offering a writing residency that never ends; Dave Eggers discusses living in America in the wake of the NSA spying revelations; and other news.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos revealed a delivery system in the works called Prime Air, in which drones deliver goods; Kat Stoeffel speaks with poet and Antarctic artist-in-residence Jynne Dilling Martin; Jason Diamond rounds up the best books this year to give as gifts; and other news.
The Walt Whitman Birthplace was built in 1819 by Walter Whitman, father to the poet Walt Whitman. Today the Birthplace house and Interpretive Center offer guided tours, a museum shop and bookstore, picnic facilities, auto-hiking tours of West Hills, concerts, lectures, poetry readings, poetry contests, and a Poet-in-Residence program.
Jack Kerouac lived in this house in Orlando, Florida, at the time On the Road made him a national sensation. Kerouac also wrote his follow-up to On the Road, The Dharma Bums, at this location in the course of eleven days and nights. Today, the Kerouac House gives tours of the house and The Kerouac Project provides four residencies a year to writers.
Founded in 1997, the Hugo House offers writing classes and events, including the annual Hugo Literary Series, which invites established and up-and-coming writers to create new work and debut it at the house, and the Zine Archive and Publishing Project, which maintains a library of more than 20,000 handmade and independent publications. Residencies, one for an established writer and one for a youth writer, are also offered.
