Real People, Real Struggles, Real Stories: Writing About Mental Illness

The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is offering a fellowship to a writer working on a short or long work of non-fiction focusing on how they (the writer or another) have managed, and continue to manage, their mental illness. This personal story should offer not just insight and awareness, but most importantly, hope. The writer should share their dreams, and how they adjust and fine-tune them. Stories focused on relationships, family life, travel, employment, civic contributions, passions, along with the barriers, fears, and stigmas faced, are encouraged. For the purposes of this fellowship, the writing should be non-fiction, and can take the form of memoir, essay, profile, or biography. The successful application will demonstrate insight, honesty, literary merit, and the likelihood of publication.
 
The fellowship winner will receive a two-week residency to allow the recipient to focus completely on their work. Each writer’s suite has a bedroom, private bathroom, separate writing space, and wireless internet. We provide uninterrupted writing time, a European-style gourmet dinner prepared five nights a week and served in our community dining room, the camaraderie of other professional writers when you want it, and a community kitchen stocked with the basics for other meals. We work with fellows on their community outreach project to make sure it matches their unique strengths and skillsets.  

Fellowship applications must be accompanied by a writing sample and a non-refundable $35 application fee. Writers proposing more than one project must submit a separate application and fee for each one. The submission period opens on Monday, Febuary 3, 2025. Deadline is midnight CST on Monday,April 21, 2025.  The winner will be announced no later than June 1,2025. Residency must be completed by December 31, 2026. 
 
The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow would like to thank long-time supporter and former board member Sharon Spurlin for generously funding this fellowship.  To learn about funding a fellowship supporting the genre and/or area of interest you are passionate about, visit www.writerscolony.org/sponsor-a-fellowship

---NOTE:Please remember to save your changes as you complete your application, or complete the information offline and then copy and paste into this application. Any application received that does not follow the instructions will immediately be disqualified. Each application requires an application fee of $35.00. Submit your application BEFORE making a payment. Payment can be submitted here: Application Fee- Residency | writers-colony (writerscolony.org). If you have questions about the application or application process, please contact us at 479-253-7444 or wcdhfellowships@gmail.com ---Thank you and best wishes!

Thank you!

Real People, Real Struggles, Real Stories: Writing About Mental Illness is a two week residency. Please provide your desired dates (we understand these may change). This residency must be completed by December 31, 2026. WCDH is open year-round.

FIRST CHOICE OF DATES

SECOND CHOICE OF DATES

Please provide a description of the project upon which you plan to work while at WCDH. 

Your work sample must be no more than 10 pages double-spaced, clean and legible. If appropriate, indicate where the sample initially appeared and in what form (book, article, etc.), as well as the date of publication. Do not include your name anywhere on your work sample.

Fellowship recipients are expected to share their skillset through a service project. We have options both remote and in-person. This project could be a presentation, workshop, reading as judge in future fellowships, a visit to a school, talks to a civic group, etc. NOTE: Do not include any identifying information in this section. Failure to do so will result in your application being immediately disqualified.

Upon acceptance, we will work on setting up venues and a schedule with which you feel comfortable, and where your talents and gifts can nourish others. Whenever possible, you will receive written notification of this before you arrive.

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Final Steps

1. Review the application form to make certain all fields are filled and everything is in order.
2. Email wcdhfellowships@gmail.com  any files you might've forgotten to upload above.
3. Send a $35 nonrefundable application fee by mail or by clicking here to pay online.

Your application will be processed after we have received all of your information. We highly suggest you copy any entries in the text boxes above to a separate text document for your own records. Thank you and good luck!