Please read these application instructions carefully. You will apply through our Submittable portal (link at the bottom of this page.) Apply by 11:59pm Sunday, January 7. We do not accept late applications!

We accept New York State writers and artists for residencies in the following categories:

  • Poetry
  • Fiction | Creative Nonfiction
  • Photography | Filmmaking
  • Painting | Sculpture | Visual Arts

We use Submittable, an easy, online submission manager. If you are not already signed-up with Submittable, you will be prompted to create a free account. Submittable helps make the application process smooth and simple for you and for us.

We believe in and value a diverse community of creative individuals. To that end, we hope that all artists and writers feel welcome to apply for a residency, regardless of one’s level of education, experience, race, age, sex, religious belief, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or national origin.

If you have applied in the past and have not been selected for a residency, don’t be discouraged! Our juries change yearly, so you have a legitimate chance every year. And every year, there are artists and writers who were unsuccessful in the past and who re-apply and are accepted.

Preparing your application material:

More detailed application instructions specific to each discipline are included within Submittable. However, in all cases, we ask for the following things:

  • Basic personal information and a preference regarding residency dates
  • A resume (not seen by the jury.) This can be any length and can be named whatever you’d like.
  • Contact information for two personal references + how you know the reference (not seen by the jury.) Please note: we are not asking for letters of reference. Nothing should be mailed or emailed to us. References cannot be spouses, partners or other family members.
  • An artist’s or writer’s statement (seen by the jury; take care not to identify yourself or include your name in the document or file name.)

For all disciplines, we ask for a short statement about your work, no longer than one page. (For example, something in the 400-word range.) Please keep this brief and specific to the work you are submitting.

PLEASE NOTE: When composing the statement about your work, do not “credential” yourself by including information that would normally be seen on a resume. For example, your statement should not mention where you went to school or where you’ve been published, exhibited, etc. Simply talk about the work that the jury is reviewing.

  •  Work samples for everyone (seen by the jury; please do not include your name anywhere in your work sample, including in the name of individual image files.).

This is the most important part of your application. Poets, we ask for up to 10 pages of work; fiction and nonfiction writers, we ask for up to 20 pages of work, double-spaced. Visual artists and photographers are asked to submit 10 images, and filmmakers are asked to submit 1-2 samples of their work, up to 5 min. in length. (More detailed information is contained within Submittable.)

  • File list for visual artists, photographers, and filmmakers (see by the jury; please do not include your name in the file list.) This is where you list your work so the jury has a greater understand of what they’re looking at. File lists will usually include the year a work was made, dimensions, and medium

We can’t stress this enough:

Please take special care regarding identifying and “credentialing” yourself in your statements and especially how you name your work sample files. If there are errors, you will not have an opportunity to fix them and your application will be disqualified. We don’t want that to happen!

  • $0 application fee! We eliminated our application fee four years ago in an effort to make a Saltonstall residency accessible to as many people as possible.

We convene a different jury for each discipline, and they change each year. Jurors serve anonymously. Saltonstall’s board members and staff do NOT serve on any juries. Your application is considered on the merit of your work sample and your artist’s and writer’s statement.

What does “anonymous” mean, and why is it important?

Our jurying process is anonymous. This means that your application will be assigned a number by the Saltonstall office. Your work and statement are presented anonymously to the jury. They will not see your name, your resume, or your references.

For the second year in a row, we will be asking a few demographic questions at the end of each application. These questions are optional, although we would be grateful for your participation.

In our ongoing efforts to be more inclusive, equitable, and accessible, we want to empower our juries to consider the applicants’ historical representation and to recommend a roster of writers and artists that capture the diversity of the field. While applicants will remain anonymous throughout the jurying process, we anticipate sharing geographic and demographic information with our jurors as the rounds progress.

Note to visual artist applicants: if your work sample contains images of your work that are signed, please take care to obscure your signature.

3- to 4-weeks? Or 1- to 2-weeks?

Applicants may apply for either a 3- or 4-week residency or a 1- or 2-week residency (not both.) Applicants may apply in more than one artistic or literary category, however a complete and separate application for each category is required.

Similarly, applicants cannot apply for both a 1- to 4-week residency and also our week-long residencies specifically for parents.

A 1-week residency for parents?

Yes! Our fifth annual one-week residency for artist/writer parents is:

  • Thursday – Thursday, May 30 – June 6

This residency is open to artist/writer parents with at least one dependent child (under 18) at home. Since the residency is designed to be a period of solitude and focus for artists and writers, we ask that children and other family members remain home.

All residency guidelines and application instructions are exactly the same for these shorter residencies as they are for our longer sessions. Within Submittable, parents will apply within the specially-designated “Residency for Parents” forms.

Again, applicants may apply for either this parent-specific 1-week session or the general 1-week to 4-week residencies, but not both.

Residency Alumni

Residency alumni are eligible to re-apply two years after being accepted for a residency. (Ex. artists/writers who were in residence in 2021 would wait until the 2023 cycle to re-apply.) However, alums cannot submit the same work sample that earned them their residency fellowship.

Two absolute requirements

All applicants must be at least twenty-one (21) years of age. The residency program is open to full-time year-round residents of New York State (all counties) and Indian Nations therein.

Applicants should seriously consider whether the quiet, communal, working environment of the residency suits their temperaments and work habits. The Foundation requires that those selected for residencies firmly commit to spending their awarded residency period at Saltonstall.

We strongly encourage all applicants to apply on-line. Please call our office at 607-539-3146 if you are unable to apply on-line, and we will work to accommodate you.

FAQs

Please visit our FAQs page for other commonly asked questions about our residency program.

“Though I’ve been a resident of Ithaca for four years, it wasn’t until my time in Saltonstall that I was able to really reap its beauty. It was like discovering fresh soil–I wrote more than I wrote in an entire year, and the sacredness of that silence and solicitude helped me write without anything else weighing me down. Saltonstall was a marvelous gift.” – Sally Wen Mao, poet, Ithaca (2014)

 

In my daily life,  I am often disturbed by how easy it is to pass hours or even days without completing a single complex thought; how most of the forces at work in my life would prefer I abandon each thought halfway. Saltonstall has afforded me the time and space to think through the questions that guide my writing to a fuller extent. I’ve had some crucial creative breakthroughs these past four weeks” – Max Delsohn, fiction writer (2022)

poet Amy Lemmon sitting at her desk at Saltonstall with journals and notes spread out in front of her

“The word that comes to mind in describing my time at Saltonstall is ‘open’ – open spaces, open doors and windows, open mind and heart and senses.

As the working single parent of a young adult with Down syndrome who was recently placed in residential care, I am experiencing for the first time what it means to foreground my creative and intellectual work, while taking in the incredible beauty of this area in early summer.

As important as the words I have drafted and edited here is the progress I have made in healing from the strains of recent years, renewing my resolve to more solidly embed writing in the patterns of ‘regular’ life.”

Amy Lemmon, poet (2022)

artist Debbi Kenote sits on her Saltonstall studio floor in front of three new colorful abstract paintings

The focused time at Saltonstall has encouraged me to weave new research and ideas into my previous way of working. It has been a restorative and productive time!” –Debbi Kenote, visual artist (2022)

Maria Alvarez sitting on a couch with an open laptop on her lap in her Saltonstall studio

“A residency, I have come to learn, is not solely about creation. With its gift of time and space, a residency can be a haven where rest and reflection take precedence over production. I am more than my output. I am worthy of sitting still and simply existing.

Every day here was unplanned, a welcome change from the chaotic pace of city life. I read outside. Ate delicious meals. Received the sun on afternoon walks. Drank wine with gusto.

And I did write––about difficult, deeply-personal things. While I may not have reached the word count I’d originally planned for, I rested. And rest is also writing.” Maria Isabel Alvarez, writer (2022)

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