Genre: Creative Nonfiction

Doing Less

The Time Is Now
4.18.24

More, please? Or, no more, please? In The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without (Avid Reader Press, 2024), John Oakes recounts his personal experience conducting a weeklong fast and examines the practice’s history and place within a wide range of religions and philosophies. The book also explores the act of self-deprivation and the potential transformative benefits of subtracting rather than adding to one’s life. “The act of fasting…won’t stop routine, but impedes it for a bit, signifying a shift and a determined unwillingness to follow standard operating procedure,” writes Oakes. Use this idea to consider your personal relationship with consumption—of food, conversation, media, clothes, space—and write a personal essay that reflects on what you might otherwise take for granted.

Rushdie on Censorship and Writing

Caption: 

“My desire to be a writer was entirely to do with the love of the power of the imagination, imagining worlds, creating worlds for readers to inhabit.” In this 60 Minutes video, Salman Rushdie speaks about the dangers of censorship, how he would like to be remembered, and what inspires him to keep writing. 

Genre: 
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Tags: 
Salman Rushdie
60 Minutes
interview
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
memoir
censorship
Random House
2024

Alma College

MFA Program
Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction
Alma, MI
Application Deadline: 
Sat, 11/30/2024
Application Fee: 
$0

Vermont Studio Center

May/June 2024

The Vermont Studio Center (VSC) offers two-, three-, and four-week residencies year-round to poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators in Johnson, Vermont, a village in the northern Green Mountains. VSC provides time and space to write, as well as readings, craft talks, and one-on-one consultations with invited visiting writers. Residents are provided with a private room, a private or shared bathroom, and access to a shared kitchen and communal spaces.

Type: 
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?: 
yes
Event Date: 
May 11, 2024
Rolling Admissions: 
no
Application Deadline: 
June 15, 2024
Financial Aid?: 
yes
Financial Aid Application Deadline: 
June 15, 2024
Free Admission: 
no
Contact Information: 

Vermont Studio Center, 80 Pearl Street, P.O. Box 613, Johnson, VT 05656. (802) 635-2727.

Contact City: 
Johnson
Contact State: 
VT
Contact Zip / Postal Code: 
05656
Country: 
US
Add Image: 
A large red building with a gray roof next to a river.
Genre: 
Poetry
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Translation

With Certainty

The Time Is Now
4.11.24

In a 1789 letter, Benjamin Franklin wrote the phrase, “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Franklin was reflecting on the establishment of the U.S. Constitution, which he said promised to be durable, as well as his own ailing health and mortality. This week write a personal essay that riffs off this proverb, reflecting on your own worldview about what can be certain. You might start off with the prompt: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and ______.” Tell the story of how you arrived at your own ideas about what you can always count on, whether good or bad. What past experiences, encounters, or memories seem to reinforce your belief?

Sonoma County Writers Camp

May/June 2024

The Summer 2024 Sonoma County Writers Camp will be held from July 24 to July 28 at the Ratna Ling Retreat Center in Cazadero, California. The retreat features generative workshops in fiction and creative nonfiction, panels by authors and agents, master classes, meditative dream writing, and student readings. The faculty includes fiction writer Ellen Sussman and fiction and nonfiction writer Elizabeth Stark. The cost of the retreat, which includes all meals, lodging in a single-occupancy room, and activities, is $2,495. Registration is first come, first served.

Type: 
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?: 
no
Event Date: 
July 24, 2024
Rolling Admissions: 
yes
Application Deadline: 
May 11, 2024
Financial Aid?: 
yes
Financial Aid Application Deadline: 
May 24, 2024
Free Admission: 
no
Contact Information: 

Sonoma County Writers Camp, 1993 Burnside Road, Sebastopol, CA 95472. Ellen Sussman, Cofounder and Codirector.

Ellen Sussman
Cofounder and Codirector
Contact City: 
Cazadero
Contact State: 
CA
Country: 
US
Add Image: 
Sonoma County Writers Camp buildings
Genre: 
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Tags: 
writing conferences

Ragdale

May/June 2024

The Ragdale Foundation offers residencies of 18 days year-round to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers on 38 acres of prairie in Lake Forest, Illinois, 30 miles north of Chicago. Residents are provided with a private room and bathroom, a shared kitchen, and meals. The cost of the residency ranges from $630 to $4,500 on an income-based sliding scale. A limited number of fully funded fellowships with stipends of $1,000 or more are available.

Type: 
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?: 
yes
Event Date: 
May 11, 2024
Rolling Admissions: 
no
Application Deadline: 
May 15, 2024
Financial Aid?: 
yes
Financial Aid Application Deadline: 
May 15, 2024
Free Admission: 
no
Contact Information: 

Ragdale, 1260 North Green Bay Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045. (847) 234-1063, ext. 23. Deanna Miera, Residency Manager.

Deanna Miera
Residency Manager
Contact City: 
Lake Forest
Contact State: 
IL
Contact Zip / Postal Code: 
60045
Country: 
US
Genre: 
Poetry
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction

Fiction Meets Science Residency

May/June 2024

The Fiction Meets Science Residency offers up to two residencies of three to ten months annually to fiction and nonfiction writers at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study in Delmenhorst, Germany. Residents are provided with a private apartment and office space at the institute, where they will connect with an international community of guest scientists. Residents are expected to give one lecture or reading and to attend the weekly lectures given by the scientist fellows at the institute.

Type: 
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?: 
yes
Event Date: 
May 11, 2024
Rolling Admissions: 
no
Application Deadline: 
May 15, 2024
Financial Aid?: 
no
Financial Aid Application Deadline: 
May 11, 2024
Free Admission: 
no
Contact Information: 

Fiction Meets Science Residency, Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Lehmkuhlenbusch 4, 27753 Delmenhorst, Germany. Susan M. Gaines, Project Director.

Susan M. Gaines
Project Director
Contact City: 
Delmenhorst
Country: 
DE
Genre: 
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction

Pattis Family Foundation Creative Arts Book Award

Interlochen Center for the Arts
Entry Fee: 
$0
Deadline: 
June 1, 2024
A prize of $25,000 and a weeklong residency at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan, will be given annually for a book of fiction or nonfiction published in the previous two years “that inspires, illuminates, or exemplifies the creative process.” The winner will also participate in an event cohosted by the National Writers Series in Traverse City, Michigan, in April 2025. Using only the online submission system, submit a book of any length published in 2022 or 2023 by June 1. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.

Pages

Subscribe to Creative Nonfiction