Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 1st Aug - Sat 6th Aug, 2022
All Day
Location
Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT
Following our successful pilot short course with childcare provided in July 2019, this year we are delighted to offer a retreat with childcare to Scottish (UK-based) mid-career and established writers.
(Please note, we are also offering a Radical Care Tutored Retreat for emerging writers with caring responsibilities. You can find more information on that here.)
With summer in full swing, we want to offer writers with caring responsibilities to be able to have the space and time to think and write. Abriachan Forest will provide childcare throughout the week from 10am – 3pm. They support lots of outdoor play and learning for all ages and stages of humans … little and large. Some days can be spent discovering woodland animals or pond dipping, perhaps looking for minibeasts or flower fairies and building houses. At other times, games will be played which might finish with some campfire cookery and storytelling deep in the woods. Most of the day will be spent outside but there are some lovely indoor spaces available too. Learn more about their work here.
The Centre will supply extra beds for children in their parent/guardian’s room and facilitate transport to and from the forest. An optional extra activity for children will be run by centre staff in the early evening.
Eligibility
This retreat is open to established Scottish (UK based) writers working in fiction, poetry, nonfiction or playwriting, who have caring responsibilities. Childcare for children 3 years and over will be provided by Abriachan Forest Trust. If you’re interested in applying and your child is under the age of three, please contact us about options.
To be eligible for the fellowship, applicants must have had at least one major piece of work published by a UK publishing house (for example, one novel, one short-story collection, one poetry pamphlet or had one professional production of their work staged).
For the purposes of this award, we define ‘Scottish (UK based)’ as: people who were born in Scotland and are now living elsewhere in the UK; people who currently live in Scotland and were born elsewhere; and people who were born in and currently live in Scotland.
Application
Please apply by sending one document including:
- A CV demonstrating your professional eligibility (maximum 3 pages)
- Age and number of dependants
- A covering letter explaining what this residency would mean to you (approx. 500w)
- A sample of your work (maximum 2,000 words, or 6 poems, doubled-spaced and single-sided)
If possible, please send as:
- A Word document, saved as ‘Firstname_Secondname’
- Arial, Calibri or Cambria font, 12pt
- Double-spaced
- Single sided
We would also be grateful if you could complete and return our Equalities and Diversity Monitoring Form, available to download here. (This can be sent in a separate file.)
Bursaries are also available to successful applicants for whom travel costs may be a barrier. More information can be found on our website here.
Applications and enquiries should be sent by email to radicalcare@moniackmhor.org.uk with the subject line Professional Retreat or by post to Moniack Mhor Creative Writers’ Centre, Teavarran, Kiltarlity, IV4 7HT.
The deadline for applications is 9th May, 5pm. All successful applicants will be notified by the 23rd May.
Monitoring
Radical Care is an action research project, funded by Creative Scotland. Moniack Mhor are participating in external research commissioned by Creative Scotland and will share learnings from this project in a public event in early 2023.
To support this, participating writers will be invited to complete a short survey at the beginning of the retreat (approximately 10 mins), and a survey and interview at the end (maximum 1 hour).
This project has been made possible with the generous support of Creative Scotland.
