A quiet studio. A beautiful setting. Time for inspiration.
A Saltonstall residency is a small community. We strive to provide a quiet, welcoming, respectful, and nurturing environment for creative individuals looking for uninterrupted time to focus on their craft. There is NO COST to attend Saltonstall or to apply. We welcome submissions from artists and writers living in New York State and Indian Nations therein.
There are five people in residence at a time: one poet, one playwright or screenwriter, one photographer or filmmaker, and two visual artists. Each group of five arrives and departs at the same time. Each Fellowship recipient is provided with a stipend, and a private live/work space with separate private studios for the two visual artists. There is also a darkroom built into the main house.
Since 2021, Saltonstall offers wheelchair friendly facilities with additional private space for a caregiver if needed.
Please keep reading for more details and information about applying below.
Two changes this coming season:
- Prose category: Writers, we are switching things up! This coming season, for the first time in many many years, our prose category is going to be Playwriting & Screenwriting.
Real talk: our prose category has become unwieldy. So we’re going to experiment with a model used by our friends at the New York Foundation for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts and rotate our writing categories in an effort to support writers who have been underserved at Saltonstall.
- Parents AND full-time caregivers: Based on valuable feedback from our community, we are expanding our one-week residencies for parents with dependent children at home to include full-time caregivers. Full-time caregivers, regardless of the age of their dependent, can now apply for these shorter sessions. (And there will be two such sessions in 2025. See below.)
2025 Residency season: May 30 – October 24
More flexibility, more options: This season will include two-week, three-week, and four-week sessions:
Four-week residencies:
- Monday – Monday, June 9 – July 7
- Monday – Monday, July 14 – August 11
Two-week residency:
- Thursday – Thursday, August 14 – 28
Three-week residency:
- Tuesday – Tuesday, September 2 – 23
Two-week residency:
- Monday – Monday, September 29 – October 13
Also, for the 6th year in a row, we are offering one-week sessions specifically for artist and writer parents. But, for the first time, this category will now include full-time caregivers regardless of the age of their dependent.
The dates for our one-week sessions for artist/writer parents and caregivers:
- Friday, May 30 – Friday, June 6
- Friday, October 17 – Friday, October 24
Applicants may apply for either our residency for parents/caregivers or the 3- or 4-week residencies or the 2-week residencies (not a combination). For those applying for the longer residencies, you will be given an opportunity to rank your choice of dates within the application.
All applicants (including those applying for the residency for parents/caregivers) may apply in more than one artistic or literary category, however a complete and separate application for each category is required.
Accessible living space and studio
Artists and writers with physical disabilities or mobility issues are encouraged to apply. Completed in 2021, our new addition and partial renovation of the studio building includes:
- a private accessible living space and bathroom with a roll-in shower
- a private accessible studio for a visual artist or writer
- a shared accessible kitchen and dining area
- accessible laundry facilities
- a private one-bedroom suite for a personal care assistant if needed
- parking outside the door, at-grade concrete sidewalks, paved driveway
With our delicious vegetarian dinners, no one goes hungry.
Food quickly becomes a central aspect of life at Saltonstall. A delicious communal vegetarian supper is served Monday – Friday, and the kitchen is kept stocked with groceries so that residents may make other meals for themselves. Because of our small size, our chef can accommodate most dietary sensitivities with each dinner she cooks.
We’ve been a vegetarian residency since our founding in 1995. We pride ourselves in adventurous, seasonal, inspired, chef-prepared vegetarian dinners, lovingly prepared by chef Mandy Beem-Miller.
Applying for a residency
We use Submittable, an online submission manager. The process for selecting artists and writers for a residency is anonymous and based on the quality of the submitted work samples and artist’s and writer’s statements. In our ongoing efforts to be more inclusive, equitable, and accessible, a few optional demographic questions are also included in the application. Our juries change each year.
Read more about Saltonstall’s residency program, application guidelines, and residency FAQs.
Application deadline: 11:59pm Sunday, January 5, 2025
Questions? Call us at (607) 539-3146 or email at any time, and you will receive a prompt reply.