The Aha! Moment

A common complaint about residencies is that they can function like exclusive clubs for well-connected writers who get invited again and again to spend weeks in sumptuous, all-expenses-paid creative isolation.

This is not at all the case for the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, says the colony’s residency director, David Macy, who notes that on average 60 percent of residents are attending for the first time. “The truth