I know this is a question I had when I first started and I scoured the internet for advice and examples before I started applying to residencies around the globe.

First thing first: make a giant spreadsheet of every residency you can find. You’ll keep adding to it as you go–I swore I had all the writing residencies I qualified for on the list, but I keep finding more that I trip over while doing research to fund the Arctic Residency! For reference, I have 48 residencies on the spreadsheet that I am tracking. It includes the name of the residency, website, the date I made an application, application cost, open date, due date, location, length, stipend, cost, what is provided, and notes on special application details because some of them get weird. From there, I spend 1 day a month tweaking my materials to the specific applications due that month and send them in.

I made the personal choice this year to only apply to residencies that wouldn’t cost me anything–except the Arctic Circle one because, as previously stated, it was my dream residency and I was going to apply every year till I got in, darn it. Next year I’ll be focusing on only applying to free ones again since I’m planning on attending Worldcon in Brisbane in 2028 and that will take another couple years of saving to make happen. However, that cuts the list down to roughly 1/3 of available residencies and they can get quite competitive.

Starting from April of this year, I applied to 10 residencies, with 1 acceptance, 4 rejections, and 5 decisions still pending. I’m still investigating new ones I find, but there are probably only one or two left in this calendar year that I’ll apply to. Once I’ve got a list sorted out that’s nice and clean, I’ll add it to a post here for folks to see what I’ve decided I could apply for, but that’ll be after I finish sending out all my fundraising queries for the Arctic Circle! For reference, this only includes residencies that seem applicable for someone who is a straight white woman who is mid-career and from an upper middle class background. There are many, many more that I don’t qualify for because I’m not an emerging author, a visual or performance artist in my primary art, nor a person of color or gay. There are a LOT of additional residencies specifically for folks who fall into those categories, so make sure to search for them as well if you identify with them!

As for my application itself, I’ve shared below what I turned in to the Arctic Circle for some of the standard questions so you can get a sense of how I approached them. Keep in mind these are highly personal questions and will vary wildly from person to person, so while these may act as a guideline, yours will likely look entirely different based on your personality, history, and approach to art.

Letter of Interest

Advice: Be honest in your letter of interest, a little vulnerable, and let your personality shine through. Who you are is just as important as your work, especially if the residency traps you all together for 2 weeks on a boat.

As I began hunting for residencies, the Arctic Circle residency immediately caught my eye. For years, I have wanted to seek out a berth on a science vessel operating in the Arctic waters for the experience, inspiration, and writing research. I primarily write speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror) and being able to visit such a drastically different environment appeals on several levels. I’m a hands-on learner, and being able to see the ship in operation, speak with the crew and scientists, and even help the scientists and artists with their work would be incredible.

My writing frequently revolves around putting humanity into extreme environments and pushing the characters to their limits. Being able to visit one of those extreme environments—even if it is in the spring/summer—would be a boost to my portrayals of such situations on earth or secondary worlds. In addition, I look forward to learning how it feels to exist in the tight quarters of the ship with folks coming from all sorts of backgrounds and translating that to forced proximity narratives, whether spaceships or silos.

Not only does the Arctic call to me for writing inspiration, it’s also an environment that has had my heart from the moment I first started learning about it. From the terrestrial wildlife to the life that exists under the ice, it is an incredible illustration of the resilience of living things. Extremophiles carry such potential for discoveries of all kinds, the ice itself carries layers of history while also warning of future catastrophes, and the difference in atmosphere and gravity can bring light to the smallest fluctuations of physics. I can never get enough of the Arctic Circle and I hope next year to be setting sail with you.

Letter of Interest

While I won’t put the actual letters or names of specific folks here, I included letters from the executive directors of two non-profits I work with regularly with a third from a pair of folks who run a podcast and historical tour company I did a major project with recently. Have them speak to your work ethic and how you approach projects as that is the important part. Helps if you create good, but the panel for the residency is looking for indicators that the residency would be beneficial to you, your process, and your project.

My Creative Resume

I used a very simple format for my resume, single column with headers spanning two pages that included these headings:

• Education
• Selected Publications (11 of the most recent pieces I had published)
• Selected Awards (awards for writing, design, and for creative events)
• Selected Recent Talks and Panels (8 list items that included podcasts, youtube recordings of talks given at various events, and favorite panels at conventions)
• Selected Courses Taught (Title of course and most recent place I taught it)
• Instructor Positions (listing the most recent organization I taught it at and age range of class)
• Unneeded for this application since it has a separate ask for letters of recommendation, but I usually include a third sheet with creative references on it.

Make sure to pick a form of proper citation and stick with it. MLA, APA, doesn’t really matter, just make sure you nail it and keep it consistent from section to section of your resume.

Biographical Statement

Advice: While your credentials are important, so is what makes you unique as a creative? If you put in the work, anyone can have fancy creds, but how do you fill your time, what kinds of projects are you drawn to? Again, feel free to let your personality shine in the details your choose to share.

Rebecca A. Demarest (she/her) is an award-winning author, poet, playwright, book designer, and writing instructor living in Seattle, WA with her husband and three muppets. Her work has appeared alongside authors like Cat Rambo, been dramatized for the stage, and her novels and novellas are available through your favorite bookstore. She has published short stories with a range of venues from NPR to Zombies Need Brains. While the majority of her work is in the speculative genres, she has also written the occasional literary or historical story and many essays on craft. Rebecca has an undergrad in English and Psychology from Willamette University and an MFA in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College.

She has won first place for poetry from Writing on the Sound, a Storytelling World Award for her novel Less Than Charming, Most Inspirational from the Rainforest Writers for her teaching, and two New England Book Show Committee Choice Awards for her book designs. She also mentors writers and teaches workshops for all ages on the basics for genres such as mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance, memoir, and historical fiction. While she may profess to not having a favorite age to teach, she greatly enjoys working with youth and young adults because their imaginations run wild.

When not being held hostage by words, you can find her at her day job working for a mobile bookstore, tending to her indoor jungle, crafting, sewing, playtesting tabletop role playing games, hiring out as a professional Dungeon Master for Dungeons and Dragons, and failing to teach her dogs new tricks. For more information on her work, please visit www.rebeccademarest.com or follow her on BlueSky @writerlybliss.

Project Statement

Now, this is an different than most project statement I give for residencies as other residencies I usually have a current work in progress that I want to continue work on. Here’s what I sent for the Arctic Residency:

My project goals for this trip are two-fold: gather story kernels and write poetry, with a side order of photography. The poetry is fairly self-explanatory, and will consist of a goal of 20 poem drafts completed over the trip on a broad range of topics.

As for story kernels, other folks call them ideas or inspiration nuggets, but I find that classifying them as both a growth node (botanically) and origin node
(computationally) helps me to harness their potential. These come from conversations with scientists about intriguing language and concepts from their field, from the nitty gritty language particular to individual fields of knowledge like specialized art forms, or sailing, or the language of survival. My hope is that I will come out of the experience with notebooks full of notes, concepts, and conversations that can feed into a longer work of speculative fiction.

As for photography, while I am not a professional photographer, I am a moderately well-trained journeyman in the art form and I would be ecstatically taking photos the entire trip, all of which I would share with the program, crew, and residents. I would be happy to provide a portfolio.

As a final couple of notes, I am a writing instructor and would delight in being able to offer workshops either to the group of residents or to a larger audience in town, abroad, or online. I am also a regular contributor to the Ignite series of talks and would absolutely be submitting a talk about my experience which would be presented in front of an audience of almost 900 as well as posted online. Finally, I also teach and professionally run Dungeons and Dragons and other table top role playing games should anyone want to play!

Work Sample

For the work sample, I included a short story that was accepted into the Saturday Evening Post a couple years ago, “Ablutions.” It is a really good example of my writing in general and it helps that I was one published in a better known venue.

Artist Statement

While note included in the Arctic Circle Residency, applications often ask for this. Here’s an example of the sort of thing I send.

I write and create art in order to share the many and varied stories which consume my attention on a daily basis. Some of them are pure popcorn, meant solely to entertain, while others dig deep into defining what it is to be human, how powerful imagination can be, or highlighting social issues through a speculative fiction lens. Sometimes this takes the form of prose (both long and short) while other times I am driven to tell the story through poetry, playwriting, interactive storytelling, photography, and other mediums.

I delight in hunting for story kernels in unexpected places. Other folks just call them ideas or inspiration, but I find that classifying them as both a growth node (botanically) and origin node (computationally) helps me to harness their potential to evolve into something complex and fulfilling. I find these most often in science or when speaking to experts in fields as varied as sailing and cast iron restoration (for example.) My favorite part of the artistic process involves finding the best way to communicate these stories, be it as a photo essay, play, poem, or prose. Spending time immersed in ideas whether through my day job, a residency, or primary research is critical to my process and often returns unexpected yet satisfying results.

In between creating stories, I mentor and teach writers of all ages in a variety of topics related to writing as a whole, and speculative fiction in particular. Nothing makes me happier than to help someone put a story on the page for the first time and watch their passion for writing blossom. I teach for the same reasons that I write: I want people to find joy and meaning in narrative in the same way that I continuously return to the page to understand my place in this world. I want readers to question their preconceived notions, whether challenging their perception of form in storytelling, or the subconscious bias that exists in all of us.