2 minute read
Residency Experiences
Anna Weinstein on Her LES Center Residency Experiences
March 30, 2020
There’s a meme going around, a joke about discovering that your typical daily lifestyle is actually called “quarantine.” I imagine a lot of writers relate to this. We writers tend to work best in isolation.
Sure, there are times when I appreciate seeing people bustling around me as I write, headphones in my ears, life unfolding in real time as I create my own version of reality on the page.
But for the most part, I write in solitude.
When I’m at home, this happens in the early hours of the day, when it’s still dark outside, before the boys wake up and the house fills with sound. For years I used to go to Miami to find the space to write. I would fly down, lock myself in a hotel room, and emerge four days later with a rough draft of a script.
After a while, though, that started to feel like a silly waste of travel time, so I began going to the Marriot Suites in Midtown Atlanta.
And then last summer, I discovered the Lillian E. Smith Center…
Five separate times in the past year, I’ve gone to work at the same cabin at the Lillian E. Smith Center in North Georgia. I typically stay for five days at a stretch in Wiggie. I write in the bed, sometimes at the desk, sometimes in the comfy chair by the fireplace, sometimes on the deck. But mostly, in the bed. It’s a tiny cabin, one room with a kitchen area, a sitting area, and a bathroom. There are always fresh flowers on the table when I arrive. The room is clean, wood paneled walls, the same familiar green sheets on the bed. It feels like home to me. The TV is about 100 years old (I’ve never turned it on), and there’s barely even enough room to pace around. (Although one time I got 20,000 steps from walking in small circles around the inside of the cabin!
Tiny, old-fashioned, nothing fancy. But it’s like heaven to me. I crave going. I miss it when I’m not there. I do amazing work there. My brain is open, and my fingers move fast. I’ve even gotten a little superstitious about it. Like I fear I must be there in order to write well.
I was supposed to head up to the mountains recently but decided not to travel during this time of self-quarantine. My husband said I should go anyway. I would never even need to leave the cabin! Just one stop on the way there to gas up the car…
I plan on returning soon. I have work to do. So much work, and I know just how to do that work at the cabin.
Thank you, Dear Lillian, for providing me the space to work in peace. I love your space.
