Kimbilio and The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow have been building a relationship slowly over the last few years, but with Covid and a number of other obstacles, it just hasn’t quite worked out.
Until now.
WCDH is thrilled to announce we’ll be partnering with Kimbilio to bring two of their fellows to stay with us as Writers in Residence. Through this new scholarship structure, Kimbilio and The Writers’ Colony will be providing two Writers in Residence—selected by Kimbilio—to receive a travel stipend and greatly reduced residency rates.
Kimbilio is a community of writers and scholars committed to developing, empowering, and sustaining fiction writers from the African diaspora and their stories. Their organization provides their members with mentorship opportunities, a national fiction prize, and an annual summer retreat at Southern Methodist University in Taos, New Mexico. Kimbilio also coordinates readings, presentations at professional conferences, social media networking, and more. David Haynes, Chair of the Kimbilio Board of Directors is thrilled with the opportunity for Fellows to visit The Writer’s Colony. “I’ve been lucky to be in residency several times myself, and I know that Kimbilio Fellows will find their stays as enjoyable and productive as I have.”
WCDH Executive Director, Tara Cloud Clark says, “The Writers’ Colony is honored to be able to further support Kimbilio writers and continue to build our relationship with this incredible organization!”
This new scholarship structure also gives WCDH the opportunity to develop more ways to work with other organizations, private foundations, and private donors to provide residencies with a little more specificity. If you have someone you would like to provide a residency scholarship to, or if you would like to work with an organization to provide a residency scholarship within specific parameters, email director@writerscolony.org for more information.
Of course, you can always donate to the general Scholarship Fund which we hold in reserve for writers who have trouble covering the full cost of their residency. In exchange for a scholarship, we ask recipients for a community contribution, such as Kindall Gant’s Ekprhasis workshop, and we’re expanding the contribution requirements to include additional volunteer opportunities such as cataloging our library and other office work.
In 2022 we awarded over $9,000 in general scholarships for residencies, and we hope to increase that exponentially next year. For this reason, we have designated all recurring donations signed up through Facebook to go directly to our scholarship fund. And if you sign up between now and Dec 31, Facebook will match your second month’s donation! So it’s a great opportunity to support The Writers’ Colony even more!