Ledig House International Writers Residency
Overview
Application Guidelines
Ledig House Residents
Guest Speakers
Overview
Ledig House International Writers Residency is located approximately two and a half hours north of New York City in the town of Omi, in the scenic Hudson River Valley. Writers and translators from all fields are encouraged to apply for a residence lasting anywhere from one week to two months. Up to 20 writers per session--10 at a given time--live and write on the stunning 300 acre grounds and sculpture park that overlooks the Catskill Mountains.
Ledig House provides all meals, and each night a cook prepares dinner. Days are reserved as quiet hours, while evenings afford a more communal environment. During each session, several guests from the New York publishing community are invited for dinner and discussion. Bicycles, a swimming pool and nearby tennis court are available for use.
Unless otherwise arranged, writers must provide their own transportation to and from Ledig House. A colony car will be sent to pick writers up at the train station in nearby Hudson, New York. All writers should be proficient in English.
Created in 1992, Ledig House International Writers Residency is named after the German publisher Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt. Ledig had a reputation as a man with an unerring sense of literary quality. His publishing list included prominent writers from around the world--Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Yukio Mishima, Jean Paul Sartre, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Toni Morrison, Albert Camus, and Thomas Pynchon, to name only a few.
In its short history, Ledig House has hosted hundreds of writers and translators from roughly 50 countries around the world. The colony's strong international emphasis reflects the spirit of cultural exchange that is part of Ledig's enduring legacy.
Application Guidelines for 2009
The annual deadline for applications must be postmarked by November 20. Late applications will be held and considered the succeeding year. Please include the following materials:
Fellowships & Prizes
- How did you hear about Ledig House?
- A biographical sketch including publications, performances and writing credits.
- One non-returnable copy of your latest published work. If unpublished, send a ten page sample of your latest work.
- A one page description of the work to be undertaken while at Ledig House.
- One letter of recommendation. (This must be included with your application materials and provided in a sealed envelope with the signature of the individual who wrote the letter placed across the seal.)
- One self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for notification. (Non-US applicants are asked to include a sufficient "international postage coupon" in lieu of stamps.)
- A telephone number or e-mail address where you can be reached.
Applicants should specify a preference for the spring or fall session as well as the amount of time desired - no shorter than two weeks and no longer than two months.
All applicants who include an SASE will be notified of selections by February 1st.
Due to the high volume of applications we are not able to respond to email inquiries regarding receipt of material or acceptance to the program.
Send completed applications to:
Ledig House Applications
Omi, Inc.
55 Fifth Avenue, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10003
For further information:
Fax: (212) 206-6114
Email: writers@artomi.org
Francis Greenburger Fellowship on Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict: Fellowship only for an artist whose work relates to managing and/or mitigating religious and ethnic conflict. Work made at Omi must be in direct relation to this area.
The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowship for a New Jersey Writer
Each year one New Jersey writer will be selected for a two-month residency to Ledig House. Writers from all genres are encouraged to apply, but must reside in the state of New Jersey. Publication is not required, but is highly suggested. Application materials are the same as those listed under the "Applications" page of this website. The deadline for applications is November 30. Applicants should address envelope to:
Ledig House Applications
*New Jersey Writers' Fellowship
55 Fifth Avenue, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10003
THE OMI INTERNATIONAL WELCOMES EIGHTEEN WRITERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD FOR THE 2008 FALL SESSION AT LEDIG HOUSE
The Omi International Arts Center is proud to welcome its fall residents to the Ledig House Writers Residency Program. The session will run from September 12th - November 21st. A community reading has been scheduled for Saturday, September 27th. It will take place in the new Visitors Center at the Omi International Arts Center (59 Letter S Road in Ghent). The residents will read from their work at 5PM and there will be a BBQ to follow. Additionally, there will a New York City event on Sunday, November 9th, at 7pm. The residents will present a reading as a part of the KGB series at 85 East 4th Street in the East Village. All events are free and open to the public.
In the fifteen years since its founding, the Ledig House International Writers' Colony has invited nearly five hundred writers and translators from over fifty countries to Columbia County and opened up a vital cultural byway between the Hudson Valley and the rest of the globe. In the last year alone Ledig House has hosted writers from twenty countries including Australia, Germany, India, Denmark, the U.K., Italy, Romania, Hungary, Guatemala, Iran, Bosnia, and Sweden. Here are some details regarding the incoming group of residents, which include a Vietnamese poet, a Korean translator, and an Estonian writer - just to name a few:
Jennifer Vanderbes (US, Fiction) September 27-October24
Jennifer's first novel, Easter Island, was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor, and has been translated into 16 languages. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Gazmend Kapllani (Greece, Fiction) October 18-November 21
Gazmend was born in Albania and immigrated to Greece in 1991. He studied philosophy and has a PhD in Political Science and History. As a journalist he has worked as a columnist for the Greek daily Tea Nea. His fiction has been published by Portobello in the UK.
Marie Le Drian (France, Fiction)0ctober 25- November 21
Marie was born in Brittany and worked for several years at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris as a sociologist. Her first novel, Le petit bout du L, won the Prix des écrivains Bretons in 1992. She subsequently published several collections of short stories and six novels. La cabane d'Hippolyte, published by Julliard in 2001, received a special award from the town of Carhaix. Her last novel, Attention éclaircie, was published in 2007 (Editions de la Table Ronde).
Simona Mambrini (Italy, Translation) October 11-Novmber 7
Simona received a PhD in Comparative Literature from Terza Università di Roma in 1997 and has been translating children's books for over 10 years, working to bring literature from English into Italian. She also teaches literary translation (French into Italian) at the University of Arezzo-Siena.
Luísa Costa Gomes (Portugal, Fiction/Translation/Playwriting) September 20-October 17
Luísa has published five collections of short stories, four novels, and nine plays. She also completed the libretto for White Raven, the 1998 opera by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, and a libretto for a cantata that she also staged. Her novel Life of Ramón, the fictional biography of the Catalan philosopher Ramón Llull, has been translated into Catalan, Dutch and French (Gallimard). Two of her stories have been translated into English and have been published online at webdelsol.com. They are also available at her homepage www.luisacostagomes.com.
Alex Lee (South Korea, Fiction/Translation) November 1-November 21
Alex was born in Seoul and majored in French and English. She has translated French and English books into Korean including works such as No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July, Love Creeps by Amanda Filipacchi and At the End of Our Tethers by Alasdair Gray. She was involved in the Pusan International Film Festival as a translator for the film directors. Alex's own fiction includes a collection of short stories. She has also worked as a literary agent since 2004.
Tishani Doshi (India, Fiction) October 25-November 21
Tishani was born in Madras, India, to a Welsh mother and a Gujarathi father. She was educated at Queens College, North Carolina, and at Johns Hopkins University. Her longest standing job was at Harpers & Queen magazine in London for 10 months. Since then she's moved back to India where she works and performs with a contemporary dance group all over the world and moonlights as a writer. Her first book of poems, Countries of the Body, won the Forward Prize for the best first collection in 2006, and she also won the All-India Poetry Competition in 2006. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury. .
Ki wa (Estonia, Fiction) September 12-October 24
Ki wa is an Estonian experimental multi-artist. His practices - texts (articles, essays, poetry), visual art (video, performance, installation), sound instillations, editorial and curatorial work - make up one consistent text, a personal semiosphere, where one theme is expressed through different mediums. Ki wa has published three books and edited an anthology of Estonian experimental literature. His book Way of the Robot is Displacement was called "the most ambitious post-modern text ever published in Estonian."
Hoang Hung (Vietnam, Poetry/Translation/Journalism) September 13- October 17
Hoang was born in North Vietnam and received a BA in Vietnamese Language & Literature. From 1965 to 1973 he served as a teacher in Haiphong City High School, and from 1973 to 1982 he worked as a journalist. From 1982 to 1985 he was a political prisoner. In 1988 he began working as a journalist again, writing for various newspapers and magazines. His body of work includes volumes of poetry and translations from French and English into Vietnamese.
Owen Sheers (Wales, Fiction/Poetry) October 26-November 21
Owen's debut prose work, The Dust Diaries (Faber 2004), a non-fiction narrative set in Zimbabwe, won the Welsh Book of the Year 2005. In 2004 he was Writer in Residence at The Wordsworth Trust and was selected as one of the Poetry Book Society's 20 Next Generation Poets. Owen's second collection of poetry, Skirrid Hill (Seren, 2005) won a 2006 Somerset Maugham Award. Owen's first novel, Resistance (UK Faber, 2007/ US Nan Talese/Doubleday 2008) will be translated into nine languages. Owen is currently a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.
Rebecca Morrison (UK, Fiction/Translation) October 25 - November 21
Originally from Scotland, Rebecca read modern languages (French and German) at Oxford and moved to Berlin after graduation, where she worked as a translator and literary agent. Her translations include work by Bernhard Schlink, Ernst Weiss, Ilija Trojanow and the biography of Fearless Nadia, an early Bollywood star. Since 2003 Rebecca has been based in London as a translator and as editor of 'New Books in German,' a bi-annual magazine on contemporary German literature.
Mikolaj Lozinski (Poland, Fiction) October 11-November 21
Mikolaj has a degree in Sociology from Sorbonne (Paris 5). He has published short stories in literary magazines and held a number of photographic exhibitions. He has earned his living by doing odd jobs, including work as a painter and assistant-cum-interpreter to a blind psychotherapist. Reisefieber is his first novel.
Ayse Kulin (Turkey, Fiction) September 12-October 10
Born in Istanbul, Ayse graduated from American College for Girls in Istanbul with a BA in Literature. She has worked as a journalist, art director, stage manager and script writer for TV and cinema over 15 years. Her first book was published in 1984 and she dedicated herself full time to writing in 1996, publishing 17 books. All have been national best-sellers. Asye donated royalties from three of her books to educating girls in rural areas. She is a founder of Amnesty International in Turkey (1978) and she is a Good Will Ambassador of UNICEF.
Ole Steen Hansen (Denmark, Nonfiction) October 4-October 31
Living in a Danish coastal town, Steen works as a writer, translator and photographer. His own work includes photographic picture books, a 12-volume history of flight for children, travel guides and a book on the year 1945 in Northern Europe. Steen works with publishing houses in Denmark and England, and his children's books has also been published in USA, UK, Canada, France, Holland, Norway, Lebanon and China. He has translated major historical works by authors such as Stephen Ambrose, Antony Beevor and Martin Gilbert.
Ellen Sussman (US, Fiction) October 11-October 24
Ellen's Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia Of Sex, was published by Bloomsbury earlier this year. Her anthology, Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave, was published by W.W. Norton in 2007 and became a New York Times Editors Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller. She is the author of the novel, On a Night Like This, also a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller. It has been translated into six languages. Her website is www.ellensussman.com
Lisa Katz (Israel, Translation) September 12-October 10
Winner of the 2008 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, Lisa was born in New York and received a Ph.D. from the English Department of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where she has lived since 1983. Reconstruction, a volume of her poetry in Hebrew translation, has just been published by Am Oved Press in Israel. Lisa's translation of Look There: The Selected Poems of Agi Mishol was published in 2006 (Graywolf Press.) She teaches literary translation and creative writing at Hebrew University.
Scott Nadelson (US, Fiction) September 12-September 26
Scott is the author of two story collections. The first, The Cantor's Daughter, was the recipient of the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Fiction Prize for Emerging Jewish Writers and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize. The second, Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories, was the winner of the Oregon Book Award for short fiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. He teaches creative writing at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.
Sharon Rotbard (Israel, Fiction) September 27-October 10
Sharon is an architect, editor and author based in Tel Aviv. In 1995 he co-founded Babel publishers, Israel's first independent press. In 2000 he launched www.babel.co.il, the first cultural Hebrew website. His first book White City, Black City, on Jaffa and Tel Aviv's histories, appeared in 2005. His second book Avraham Yasky, Concrete Architecture, a monograph on the work of Avraham Yasky, Israel's leading architectural firm for fifty years, was published in 2007. Sharon is a senior lecturer at the Architecture department in the Bezalel Academy.
Inez Baranay (Australia, Fiction/Nonfiction) September 20-October 31
Inez was born in Italy to Hungarian parents who immigrated to Australia, where she grew up. She is the author of nine published books, six of them novels, the latest, With the Tiger, was published by HarperCollins India. Her previous novel, Neem Dreams, was also published in India and in 2007-8 she spent five months at Binger Film Lab in Amsterdam writing an adaptation. She is currently working on a memoir.
Paul La Farge (US, Fiction/Translation) October 25-November 21
Paul is the author of two novels, The Artist of the Missing (FSG, 1999) and Haussaann, or the Distinction (FSG, 2001), and a book of short fiction, The Facts of Winter (McSweeney's Books, 2005). He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, and the Bard Fiction Prize in 2005. He is currently working on a project about flight in America.
Niloufar Talebi (US, Translation) November 1-November 21
Niloufar was born in London to Iranian parents. She received a BA in Comparative Literature from UC Irvine, and an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. Her translations have been anthologized and published in Two Lines, Poetry International, Circumference, Agni and Harvard Divinity Bulletin. She was the guest editor of the Spring 2006 issue of Rattapallax. Niloufar is the recipient of translation prizes from the International Center for Writing and Translation (2004), the American Literary Translators Association (2005), the PEN/New York State Council for the Arts (2006), and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize (2006). She edited and translated BELONGING: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World (North Atlantic Books, July 2008). www.niloufartalebi.com
David Knowles, (US, Fiction/Screenwriting) September 15-26
David is the author of the novels The Secrets of the Camera Obscura and The Third Eye. His short fiction has appeared in Nerve, The Baffler, and St. Anne's Review, and his non-fiction articles have been published in Men's Vogue, Travel + Leisure, GQ (Spain), Vanity Fair (Italy), USA Today, and Newsday. He is currently the lead writer and an editor for the AOL blog "Political Machine." For five years, David served as the Executive Director of Ledig House. While in residence he will work on a screenplay of his first novel.
For information please call 518-392-4568 ex. 100
Ledig House Guest Speaker Program
The Guest Speaker Program brings Ledig House residents together with literary agents, editors, and publishers in an informal setting. The guest series provides the opportunity for frank discussion on subjects such as the future of world literature in the marketplace. Moreover it fosters connections between authors and the industry which supports, and is supported, by them.
Past Guest Speakers
Alex Abromovich, Managing Editor, Feed Magazine
Lisa Bankoff, Agent, I.C.M.
Sara Bershtel, Editor, Metropolitan Books
Jennifer Carlson, Agent, Henry Dunow
Judy Clain, Editor, Little, Brown & Co.
Chandler Crawford, Agent, Chandler Crawford Literary Agency, Inc.
Jessica Dineen, Editor, The New England Review
Barbara Epler, Editor-in-Chief, New Directions Press
Ariane Fink, Scout, Sanford J. Greenburger & Assoc.
Gary Fisketjon, Senior Editor, Knopf
Warren Frazier, Agent, John Hawkins & Associates
Carol Frederick, Scout, Sanford J. Greenburger & Assoc.
Sally Woffrod Girand, Brick House Literary Agents
Karin Graf, Agent and founder, Graf & Graf
Nikolaus Hansen, Editor-in-Chief, Mare Buch
Marcel Hartages, Editor, Rowohlt Verlag
Stefania Heim, Circumference magazine
John Hodgman, Agent, Writers House
Amy Holman, Director, Poets & Writers
Violaine Huisman, (Seven Stories)
Tim Jung, Marebuch Verlag
Beena Kamlani, Senior Editor, Viking/Penguin
Jennifer Kronovet, Circumference magazine
Sean McDonald, Editor, Riverhead
Albert Mobilio, (Bookforum)
Ethan Nosowsky, Editor, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
Barbara Perlmutter, Scout, Fischer Velag
Nina Ryan, Agent, Coles-Ryan Literary Agency
Samantha Schnee, Words Without Borders
Jill Schoolman, (Archipelago)
Heather Schroeder, Agent, International Creative Management
Susan Schulman, Founder and Agent, Susan Schulman A Literary Agency
Bettina Schwebe, Scout for numerous foreign publishers
Ira Silverberg, Agent, Donadio & Olson, Inc.
Daniel Slager, (Harcourt)
Paul Slovak, Editor, Viking/Penguin
Lorin Stein, (FSG)
Nan Talese, Pubisher, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Peter Terzian, (Newsday)
Deborah Treisman, Fiction Editor, The New Yorker
Ann Triestman, Editor, William Morrow
Jessica Wayneright, Agent, The Wayneright Agency
Lauren Wein, Editor, Grove Atlantic
Svante Weyler, Editor-in-Chief, Norstedts Forlag
Drenka Willen, (Harcourt)
Amy Williams, Collins & McCormick
Sponsors
Ledig House's sponsorship program provides foundations, corporations, and individuals the opportunity to aid the world's most talented writers and translators with the gift of a fellowship. Depending on the donor's wishes, fellowships can be tailored to different disciplines--fiction, non-fiction, or translation--as well as to different regions of the world. Memorial and honorary fellowships are also available.
The Endowment Program
Ongoing endowments can also be created to insure annual support for Ledig House writers. Large, one-time donations are made to Ledig House and invested in a money market account, the interest of which defrays the cost of a fellowship each year. Endowments can be set up anonymously or carry the name of the benefactor.
For more information on how to sponsor a writer at Ledig House, please contact:
Ledig House, Omi International Arts Center
55 Fifth Avenue, 15th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10003
212-206-6060
Ledig House is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization.
All donations are tax-deductible.
Board of Directors
Advisors
Sponsors
Executive Director
D. W. Gibson
Board of Directors
Esther Allen
Sara Bershtel
Dorthe Binkert
Dominique Bourgois
Bill Clegg
Chandler Crawford
Kate Darling
Nicholas Ellison
Barbara Epler
Inge Feltrinelli
Alexander Fest
Ariane Fink
Gary Fisketjon
Carol Frederick
Helmut Frielinghaus
Karin Graf
Francis Greenburger
Nikolaus Hansen
Hans Georg Heepe
Beena Kamlani
David Knowles
Sigrid Kraus
Antje Landshoff
Jeffrey Lependorf
Carol Mann
Michael Naumann
Viktor Niemann
Daniel Slager
Barbara Tolley
Betsy von Furstenberg Reynolds
Svante Weyler
Sally Wofford-Girand
Advisory Committee
Edward J. Acton
T.D. Allman
Anna Bourgeois
Oliver Bourgeois
George Cockcroft
Fred Jordan
Chris Loken
Jack Macrae
Emily Mann
Nenad Popovich
Ulla Rowohlt
Sir George Weidenfeld
Sponsors
Australian Cultural Council
Danish Literature and Information Center
Finish Literature Exchange
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
Indiana University
Institute for Portuguese Books and Libraries
National Foundation for Jewish Culture
Piper Verlag
Prana Studios
ProHelvetia
H.M. Ledig Rowohlt Foundation
Rowohlt Verlag
Royal Literary Fund
Alfa Publishers
Ledig House is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Endowments
The Robert Buchbinder Fellowship
The Diane Cleaver Fellowship
Ledig Rowohlt Fellowship
The Jack Weprin Fellowship
Sponsors - Thank You
Ledig House expresses its gratitude to all of the sponsors for their support.
Ledig House is a proud member of the
freeDimensional Network
www.freedimensional.org
Ledig House is proud to form a exchange partnership with Het beschrijf in Belgium. In this exchange, Het Beschrijf will work to bring a Belgian writer to Ledig House and Ledig House will work to bring an American writer to Het Beschrijf's residency program, Passa Porta.
The literary organisation Het beschrijf in Brussels has been a builder of bridges since its inception in 1998 - between different languages and literatures, literature and society, and literature and the other arts.
In 2004 Het beschrijf launched two new initiatives: the Passa Porta International House of Literature in the heart of Brussels, and a prestigious residency program for writers. Guest writers are able to choose to stay in the centre of the city or in the rural countryside of Brussels. The length of the stay varies between 4 and 8 weeks. Since 2004 Het beschrijf has welcomed some 80 writers from all over the world.
More information on the residence program on www.residencesinflanders.be
