Two exceptional writers chosen for 2020 North Coast Writers’ Residencies
Deborah Williams and Sarah Buckmaster have been selected to participate in the second annual North Coast Writer’s Residency, developed collaboratively by the Astoria Writer’s Guild and Astoria Visual Arts. The residency program offers both established and emerging writers a unique opportunity to launch new endeavors, revise works in progress, or conclude longstanding projects. The program seeks to provide writers with writing time and space in an idyllic setting: the Spotted Goat Cottage on the Long Beach Peninsula, which features panoramic views of Willapa Bay, Long Island, and the Willapa Hills.
Sarah Buckmaster intends to complete her first novel during her residency. "I have spent the last few years working on my novel. I have stopped, started, re-started, stopped and started again. This residency would provide me with the opportunity to focus deeply and finish a first draft of my first-ever novel. This residency would provide me with the opportunity to focus deeply and finish a first draft of my first ever novel. To spend a week ‘living’ as a writer, to get the chance to discuss my novel... and share my writing with others would be a meaningful step into the writing life I so strongly desire."
Deborah Williams, a professor of Literature and Creative writing at NYU Abu Dhabi, will work on a project titled “Hot and Strange: Reinventions of Self and School in the Middle East,” which follows her experience moving to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Her previous novel, “The Corset and the Veil,” was based on the extraordinary life of Hester Stanhope, the 19th century female version of Lawrence of Arabia. Ambitious and artistocratic, she fled England in 1809 and found adventures beyond anything she could imagine.
