Issuu

THEGARDAN 05

THE

CRAIGARDAN JOURNAL

GROUNDING

Dear Reader, In the beautiful chaos of the season, this summer has been challenging, connective, productive—and hopeful, too. Through the collective action of creating art, growing and sharing food, and laying the foundations for ideas of the future we’ve been learning the stories of this land, sharing our own, and creating new ones. In an electrical circuit there is an active wire which supplies the power, a neutral wire which transfers the current, and a grounding wire that provides a space for the current to flow back into the ground. This electrical grounding is important as it directs excess electricity into the earth instead of harming the appliances, animal fencing, or even yourself. Grounding stabilizes the system to assure the right amount of power is going to the right place. Without grounding, the circuit would be neither efficient nor complete. Like the hot fences circling the bees, chickens, and sheep surging for their protection, we’ve been grounding here for stability and connection—creating a complete circuit and a safe place to sit in the tension. We’ve kept close to the soil this summer and, inspired, we offer you the stories of this land and the artists who spent time here. Gardan Issue 05 elevates the voices of a few current and past residents. It is through conversation, poetry, photography, studio contemplations, and recipes that this issue welcomes you into their grounding process.

— All of Us at Craigardan

MISSION

THE GARDAN

Craigardan is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to encourage the human imagination to interpret the world with philosophical, ecological, and artistic perspective.

The Gardan, a project of Craigardan, is an offering to our community in response to the 2020-21 coronavirus pandemic, with the intention to carry us forward and onward long after. Together we will be stronger and more imaginative than ever before.

T o f u l fi l l o u r m i s s i o n , Craigardan supports artists, chefs, craftspeople, farmers, scholars, and writers through residencies, social justice initiatives, and other community programs. PROGRAMS AND PLACE Located in the heart of the Adirondacks, Craigardan’s artist-in-residence program strives to cultivate a rich and collaborative place-based experience for all people working in all disciplines.

The Gardan is intended to foster conversations about creativity and its processes among and across all d i s c i p l i n e s . We w e l c o m e contributions from artists and thinkers, activists and farmers, environmentalists and chefs at any and all stages of creative development.

We hope that The Gardan will unite you with your extended family of creative thinkers and bring a breath of Adirondack air to your inbox. Each issue can be found online at www.craigardan.org CONTENT SUBMISSION We invite your contributions of words, images, video, field notes, sound, and any other way you wish to connect to us, and to each other. Issues are curated by our editors. Complete guidelines for content submission are online at www.craigardan.org/ journalsubmission

Each issue is inspired by and draws from the weekly happenings during a residency session, delivering a small piece of our program — along with inspiration and ongoing support — to encourage you to self residency wherever you are.

The Gardan is guided by our staff and fully supported by Craigardan’s funding and the efforts of our board and volunteers. We are actively pursuing grants and donations that would enable us to offer compensation for contributors. All contributors receive a complimentary print copy of The Gardan by mail.

Lanse Stover, President

Mary Barringer

Frances Westley

David Speert, Vice-President

Allison Eddy

Michele Drozd

Lorene Garrett, Treasurer

Loren Michael Mortimer

Janelle A. Schwartz

Kate Moses, Secretary

Andrea Volpe

Our strong interdisciplinary foundation encourages creative thinking and collective problem solving by welcoming diversity in all of its forms.

BOARD AND STAFF

CONTACT

EDITORS

CRAIGARDAN www.craigardan.org info@craigardan.org 518.242.6535 9216 NYS Route 9N, Elizabethtown, NY 12932

With special thanks to editors Mary Barringer and Kate Moses.

All artwork is used with permission of the artist, who retains copyright of their work

CONTRIBUTORS

LINDSAY EBERHART Syracuse, NY

JEFF MERTZ Kingston, NY

CHLOE WINGERTER Oxford, England

JENNIFER STEIL Tashkent, Uzbekistan

CHEF RAENEL STELLY Nashville, TN

KATE MOSES Elizabethtown, NY

IN RESIDENCE IMAGES Past artist-in-residence Jeff Mertz captures Culinary Fellow Raenel Stelly in the kitchen

MONDAYNIGHTDINNER Michele Drozd in conversation with past writer-in-residence Jennifer Steil

TUESDAYCLASS Cookie recipe by Farm + Food Resident Intern Lindsay Eberhart

WEDNESDAYCRIT Lindsay Eberhart shares her photography and poetry

FRIDAYLECTURESERIES The Edge Effect by Studio Resident Intern Chloe Wingerter

IMAGES Summer Residents in the community garden by Photographer Jeff Mertz

SATURDAYFARMSHARE Seed Savers: Kate Moses writes about our Bookgardan Residents and their experience

COVER Photography of Craigardan’s community farm by Jeff Mertz FRONT: Early apples BACK: Hive inspection

Chef Rae, 2021 culinary fellow, by Jeff Mertz

MONDAYNIGHTDINNER

JENNIFER STEIL Craigardan’s executive director Michele Drozd caught up with writer and residency alumni Jennifer Steil during her visit to the states this summer.

into two different day camps. She climbed a mountain everyday while I wrote Exile Music. MD: Which is your latest book that came out during the pandemic. JS: Exile Music is my newest book. It is also my first historical novel. I had no intention of writing a historical novel. Novels always happen to me, I never get to pick them. They just accost me partly as a side effect of our life which requires us to switch countries every four years.

Michele Drozd: Jennifer, you and I first met in 2017 through Kate Moses, an incredible author who introduced you to Craigardan when she was helping us pilot the new writers’ program. Remind me, where were you living at the time? Jennifer Steil: I was in France. I remember I was really depressed because a panel that I proposed for a conference had just been rejected and I thought “well, what do I have to look forward to?” And then Kate suggested that I try out this residency, and I thought it sounded idyllic. Sign me up!

MD: Talk a little bit about your first adventure, which set you off on this nomadic lifestyle. JS: I left the US in 2006 to take a job as editor -in-chief at a newspaper in Yemen. It was the most exciting, challenging, difficult, and thrilling year of my life. I learned an incredible amount from my Yemen reporters. At the end of my first year I met Tim, my husband, on Bastille Day in the garden of the French ambassadors house. I was about 38 when I met him, and I never really aspired towards marriage or becoming a parent, but somehow meeting Tim changed my mind. We ended up together and I spent another three years there. That year at the Yemen Observer inspired my first book, which is a memoir, called The Women Who Fell From the Sky. It tells the story of running the newspaper, all the mistakes that I made, the hilarity, the things I learned from my reporters, and the few things they perhaps learned from me. I wanted my readership back in the US to know the Yemenis that I knew. I wanted them to see what the Yemenis were really like. My Yemeni

MD: And you were at Craigardan for a month with a great group of writers from all over the country. JS: I was! I had an incredibly productive time. I think I was doing the final rewrite of The Ambassador’s Wife. It was a really efficient, exciting residency, with fresh vegetables and wonderful company and the most inspirational environment I could imagine, looking out at the mountains. MD: And then you came back to Craigardan the following year for a second residency. You brought your daughter, Theodora, and that was fantastic for all of us. JS: Yeah I think Theodora was eight years old at the time and you secured a grant to get her 8

reporters were the most welcoming, ambitious, excited, and open-to-learning group of people that I had ever been around, and those relationships continue today.

aware of everything that happened. For me writing is a way to process trauma, grief, happiness, anything. So I had a draft of that, and I wondered if I could use that fictionally, this traumatic thing that happened to me. What could I do with it to make something good out of it? I didn’t want it to be about my experience. So the book is based on the answer to a series of what-if questions. The ultimate result is a literary thriller that is triggered by a kidnapping but not ultimately about it. It is about a lot of other things: freedom of expression, white savior complex, and my character’s fatal flaw which is her failure to consider context. You can’t take a very western, American feminism and transplant it into another culture and expect people not to die. So, with the best of intentions, she thought she was helping people. But she wasn’t helping them in a way that perhaps they most needed to be helped.

MD: And that really comes through in the book. You really make us care about these characters. And it’s really great to get that deep perspective on the Yemeni culture and your ability to work within the culture. And then the life that you fell into by meeting Tim inspired your second book. JS: It did! Tim was the British ambassador to Yemen. So when I first moved in with him I was suddenly thrown into an unfamiliar and strange world. It took me awhile to navigate, I was so uncomfortable. I was an ordinary person living in the old city of Sanaa, living a simple life in a house with other people that I took in. And then I was suddenly living in this massive ambassadorial residence where there were staff members and a constant flow of very interesting guests. We always had guests from the UK – ministers, hostage negotiators, military people, all kinds of visitors. The conversations we had over dinner or drinks were so fascinating and involved so much information that I could never share with another human being. It occurred to me that I had to stop writing memoir, and switch to fiction. It was around that time, when I was six months pregnant with my daughter, that I was kidnapped outside of Sanaa in the mountains with four other women. I survived, spoiler! The British government asked me to write a detailed account of it just so they were

MD: It’s interesting to see how she ended up being the one helped by those same people. JS: Right, exactly! Don’t give anything away! MD: You made it through that experience, you wrote a thought-provoking book with all these what-if questions; so where do you go from there? As a writer who processes life through literature, did you already have a number of different ideas you wanted to work on? Or was the next experience with Tim the inspiration for your next book? JS: Well, I’m not a planner or an outliner. I never have a shortage of ideas, that is never 9

an issue for me. I’ve never had writer’s block. I don’t believe in writer’s block.

I started by interviewing survivors and hearing their interesting stories about how they came to Bolivia and how they adapted. I discovered that by 1938 there were only three countries in the world granting visas to Jews and Bolivia was one of those three. When I first started thinking that these stories need to be written I thought “well, whose story would I tell?” “who would be my main character?” and at the time I was also watching my daughter adapt to Bolivia. She was almost three when we moved there and she picked up Spanish in about a month.

MD: You don’t believe in writer’s block? JS: No because sometimes I think you just need to sit down and put words on a page. If they don’t make sense or are not good, so what! Just keep writing until they do. In my early twenties I thought I had to wait until I was inspired. Then when I was inspired, I could sit down and write. And that didn’t happen all that often. Inspiration usually hits when you’re already doing the work. I didn’t become a writer until I realized the hardest part is just getting to the chair. You got to show up. And once I’m there, sure, I might write total crap. My first drafts are completely useless, but that’s my process. My first draft is how I figure out the story I’m telling. There’s a magic in the storytelling. Things come out when I’m writing dialogue, whole conversations happen that I don’t plan out. They just happen the way regular conversations happen. They are just different parts of me talking to each other. And that has to happen naturally.

MD: So in some ways you were having a similar experience to those refugees, adapting to an unfamiliar culture and language as quickly as possible. JS: Right, the concept of arriving in a culture that is completely foreign was familiar to me, but I am also doing it from quite a privileged position and I’m doing it not having lost everyone I know and love. So I thought if I were a child growing up in Vienna in the 1930s with the adults around me getting increasingly stressed out and with the menace of Hitler approaching closer and closer every single day, I would need an imaginary world. I would need somewhere to retreat to, so I kind of started from that imaginary world. That was the start of the narrative.

MD: Then what was the adventure that lead to Exile Music? JS: In 2012 I moved to Bolivia with my husband and daughter. Tim was working for the European Union at the time when the UK was a part of the EU and he had a position in La Paz. Tim came home from work one day and said, “Did you know there were about 20,000 Jewish refugees living in Bolivia during WW2, and some beyond?” I had not been aware of this particular group of refugees in La Paz and other parts of Bolivia. I had read plenty about the Jewish diaspora in other parts of South America but I didn’t know anything about Bolivia so I first looked around to see if there are any novels that I could read about this population and I could not find any.

MD: Since I’ve read your previous books I know that this is going to be a very interesting cultural work as well. And while your readers learn something in your books about other cultures, what does it mean to actually be the person traveling and living in that place. JS: I think that is the area that I’m most interested in exploring as a writer: the inbetween spaces; between cultures and between countries. Who are you when you don’t belong to one place? There are more and more people who are like this - either by choice, or by necessity if they’re refugees. 10

These people aren’t sure who they are, and I feel unclear who I am. I have never felt less American than I do now, but I don’t feel like anything else, so I don’t know how I would define myself. Clearly the US shaped me and made me the person I am but, the other countries I’ve since lived in have also shaped me. It wasn’t until I moved to Yemen that I actually realized how America had shaped my assumptions about the world. There were certain assumptions - that drinking water would be safe, or that a toilet would work and I just discovered all of these different assumptions that I didn’t realize I had, and that other people, other cultures, other religions don’t share. It was really important for me to be in a process where I could try to shrink my own assumptions. I’m not saying that I’ve been successful but it’s a workin-progress. MD: As a writer you're really able to explore that space, and perhaps there aren’t any clear answers, there is only finding your way forward. Through grief, trauma, through lack of belonging, all of that.

answer to that question and my exploration is only one exploration, and the weird things that happen in my book aren’t necessarily the things that would happen, but it was something that I was interested in exploring. MD: It is great timing for both of these books. I’m thinking about how Americans can have more empathy for refugees and how important it is to shift that narrative in this country. We need to take the time to explore what it means to be underground literally and figuratively.

I’m most interested exploring… the inbetween spaces; between cultures, between countries. Who are you when you don’t belong to one place?

JS: That’s exactly what I’m exploring! And its interesting, talking about people being open and empathetic, driving around in the US since I’ve been on this trip has felt really stressful for me because I feel like I’m driving through a country that’s in the middle of a civil war, and its so sad and scary to me. And I feel like people have stopped being willing to learn anything, there is this absolute resistance to learning and to admitting t h a t s o m e b o d y e l s e ’s viewpoint might be valid.

MD: So perhaps we need the ability to shift our perspective more than ever. Final word for everyone?

JS: I just finished writing my next book which takes place underground in a country much like Bolivia, and it’s an almost entirely queer female community. It’s about gay women: revolutionaries, but not through violence; through art. There is a trope of underground literature that seems to be men with guns plotting violent revolutions and I’m so tired with men with guns and violent revolutions. So I wanted to explore what the opposite of that looks like. And again, there is no one

JS: Be NICE! Jennifer Steil currently lives with her husband and daughter in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Lesbian Fiction Award. Purchase her new novel, Exile Music, online HERE. 11

TUESDAYCLASS

TASTING GOLD Pineapple Weed (MATRICARIA DISCOIDEA) Words and Photos by Lindsay Eberhart I am new here to this place, to the plot of land that the farm sits upon and to familiarize myself with the surrounding environment, I wanted to meet the plants beyond the garden we planted in late spring. I wanted to know the wildflowers that have each taken their turn in bloom and have provided the bees with sweet nectar and a place to rest. I wanted to learn them, and I wanted to know their names. I met Orange Hankweed (Pilosella aurantiaca) from the daisy family, Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) an herbaceous plant that can be

used for heart conditions, and Sulphur Cinquefoil (Potenilla recta) that may be used as a poultice and applied to wounds. I gazed, I sniffed, and gave thanks for their beauty and supply. It was not long until I met Matricaria discoidea, or more commonly known as Pineapple Weed. She grows low to the ground in rocky and compacted soil and is usually found near pathways. Growing in what we call “disturbed” places. I sensed her resilience.

So, I did as I had done before. I gazed, I sniffed, and gave thanks. I saw chamomile and smelt pineapple, so naturally I placed the small green-yellow flower on my tongue. The cone center exploded, and hundreds of petals danced around my mouth. The medicine was palpable. Google was the next stop. I soon came to learn that pineapple weed is sometimes referred to as wild chamomile and used to relieve anxiety and treat insomnia. Additionally, the cone shaped flower heads can aid in soothing the digestive system, lowering stress, improving skin health, reducing fever, and painful menstruation cramps. Most relevant to the land on which it grows here in the Adirondacks, Pineapple Weed may also be used as a very efficient insect repellent.

three hours. Once your space smells golden, something like flowery butter, you know it is time to begin the baking process. 1¾ cup of flour 1 cup of granulated cane sugar 1/2 cup of butter infused with Pineapple Weed buds 2 eggs ½ teaspoon of vanilla ½ teaspoon salt Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream the flowery butter with sugar. Add in the eggs and vanilla. Drop by the teaspoon onto a greased baking sheet. Bake cookies for about 15 minutes, or until the edges turn golden I found that creating this cookie and then sharing with friends was both connective and grounding. It reminded me of how important it is look around, and to be with what is present, even with the weeds growing in the gravel. It is said that the golden heads of Pineapple Weed bring us to gold, and I would say that the gold is the calm awareness of interdependence that rests between humans and the earth. Working together in the kitchen is a special way to explore this relationship.

In general, the plant is very versatile, and the medicinal gifts can be received in many different forms, including eating the plant raw, drying for a tea, extracting the oils for a tincture, or in my case, baked into cookies. To begin, set out for your Pineapple Weed patch with a pair of scissors and collect about a half-cup of buds. Pieces of the leafy greens are indeed welcome so don’t worry if you cut slightly below the bud. Then, you place your buds to be chopped on a cutting board to loosen up the cone heads. This is not a fine chop, rather you are opening the flower to release its medicine into the butter. Then place the flowers and 1/2 cup of butter in a saucepan and simmer on low heat for at least

This recipe is inspired by Danielle Prohom Olson, author and creator of Gather Victoria. Through wildcrafting recipes using ancient plants, Gather Victoria celebrates “the old ways” of observing sacred traditions and bringing blessings to ourselves, our communities, and to the Earth. 13

WEDNESDAY CRIT

WISHFUL THINKING Photography and Poetry by Lindsay Eberhart

1. I was hopeful when I came out of the earth But never once did I underestimate her Beetle green Moonrise Enough to move the waters Yarrow blooms Milkweed field The river is different each time I visit Deeper pools Shifted grain I know not what’s to come 2. I was 13 when I got to know The ocean Soaking the couches in my living room, she showed me The mountains Still in time Cradling you like a newborn child I wonder, will you hold me the same?

3. The yard is long One hundred and twenty-two feet and at the far end used to sit a garden Red tomatoes In a wooden box they sat bayside roots threatened by moon tides They knew their time was short Sandy stole the tree The big one from the center of the yard Weeds growing plenty without her shade & so my father built a new wooden box In place of the tree In place to absorb the light that was once hers I’m not sure we’ve moved the box far enough & so I hope on it and wish the tomatoes well.

4. While the fires burn cedar I think of a growing seashell Green kelp in current And the most wonderful day of your life Where do you drift to?

I know the ocean. I felt her in my mother’s womb, and I met her when I came out of the earth in June of ‘99. I spent years learning with her. When I learned how to swim and finally accessed the freedom to explore her waters more deeply. When she embraced me through the hard days and dragged me out humbly on my easy days, she kept me in place. Floating and grounded, I have gazed towards the horizon in search of hope and have been gifted generously. She knows no bounds. I was 6 weeks old when I left her side; it was time to meet the mountains. 8 hours in the car, I cried most of the way but when we arrived, I settled into the newfound silence of leaves brushing up against one another, birds speaking, and the Oswegatchie river sparkling. My grandparents had painted the walls lichen green and the fireplace was built using their tired hands. The words I share, uncover parts of myself experiencing the forces of nature: Creation and destruction, propelled by love. I, know no bounds.

FRIDAYLECTURESERIES

THE EDGE EFFECT By Chloe Wingerter

Craigardan and surrounding Adirondacks, by Jeff Mertz

The Edge Effect:

glazes in pottery, a kind of ecotone in my practice. The uncertainty of what will be the first impression of my labored pots leaves me with an anxious excitement. Opening the kiln to see what unimaginable color emerges on the overlap gives me the same giddy excitement as waiting at the top of the stairs as a kid on Christmas morning. What will Black Licorice glaze look like when I overlap with Ketchup? How about Satin White and Weathered Bronze? This same uncertainty in the overlap that I find myself drawn to in the studio plays out in many facets and experiences beyond its boundaries. It’s the invigorating conversations that form when I find myself hanging on every word of someone who is showing me a different way of seeing, a different perspective. It’s the unexpected sense of home I came to feel in a city I had no intention of moving to in the first place. It’s the gut-feeling I get in my stomach whenever I’m on a flight to somewhere completely new to me.

“Natura non facet salute” Darwin. (Nature does not make jumps). In ecological terms, the “edge effect” refers to the change in a population or community structures that occur at the boundary of two or more habitats. (To me, it sounds like a 1980’s razor brand name.) Generally, when the edge effect increases, the habitats exhibit greater biodiversity. The transition zone, the place where habitats merge, is called the ecotone. It is coined from eco(habitat or environment) and -tone from the Greek tonos or tension. Generally, a place where ecologies are in tension.

“This was what Darwin was trying so hard to get his readers to see: that there is never just one way of ranking nature's organisms. To get stuck on a single hierarchy is to miss the bigger picture, the messy truth of nature, the "whole machinery of life." The work of good science is to try and peer beyond the "convenient" lines we draw over nature. To peer beyond intuition where something wilder lives. To know that in every organism at which you gaze, there is complexity you will never comprehend.” – Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don’t Exist

When I came to Craigardan in May, I envisioned walking away with a collection of pieces that explored this idea of the overlap. I imagined creating this certain glaze overlap on each piece in a similar way, by dipping from the top and dipping from the bottom so a linear middle formed with the new glaze. Yet, the more I wrestled with this idea, the more I questioned the expectation of linearity between the edge effect – in nature, in pottery, and in life. Such an effect doesn’t just happen with a quick jump over the line into the ecotone. I don’t just arrive in a new place. Rather, it’s a process of grappling with the uncertain, conflicting, risky, and unnerving nature that comes when I cross the edge into a new territory. Like Darwin says, “Nature does not make jumps.” It’s a feeling of pulling, recentering, stretching, and wobbling. Welcome, little friend, tension.

Taking inspiration from this ecological concept of the edge effect, I have always been curious about the blending of two 22

As potters, we try to control the outcome by narrowing down all the variables but in reality, all the tiny invisible interactions that happen on and within a pot between the clay, glaze, and kiln atmosphere, are out of our control. I can study the glaze recipe, stare at the test tile wall for hours, and envision how my pot might look out of the kiln. However, there is no bulletproof formula for how these millions of little variables collide, mesh, comingle, overlap to create something new. Outside the safety of the studio, I constantly have to remind myself of this process when I step into the larger experiments in my life. A pot with an unfavorable overlapped glaze makes for a great Christmas swap gift when I don’t have time to run to the nearby thrift store and pick out an ugly lamp. But on the opposite end of the risk scale, overlapping myself with a new place, person, or experience, well, that undoubtedly puts me on more shaky ground. Whether inside the studio or outside, tension arrives, often uninvited. Part of the process, for me, is feeling my way through the varying levels of risk and discomfort to see what glaze, or greater outcome, might show up at the end of the experiment.

So where does this leave this written article and my anticipated collection in the studio? I sat down to write about the magic I felt when these overlapped things come together, and ended up writing all about the tension. So, I present you with another edge. I can’t tell you what my final collection will look like when I drive down Route 9N and away from Craigardan. I can’t tell you if I’ll even overlap glazes on my pieces. But I can tell you that I will continue to face edges, boundaries, and lines all around me, each and every day, in the studio and outside. It is a never-ending process of being stretched and shaped, doubtful and hopeful, hesitant and confident, and a million other cell-jumping feelings in between. It is the energy and combustion of all of this that feels like magic.

“I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves - we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other's destiny.”  ― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

The irony is that I originally sat down to write this piece in order to debunk the edge effect. I wanted to use it as a point of inspiration for my studio work and argue that edges, lines, and boundaries don’t exist where collaboration, overlap, and intersection occur. As I tried to articulate that in written word, edges and boundaries were all around me. I arrived at Craigardan before the studio barn was complete. Once I got into the studio, centering a piece of clay felt as foreign as my lost high-school Spanish. Even trying to write this exact piece about edges not existing felt like hitting a wall. My a-ha! moment came when realizing that everything around us is a line, edge, or boundary. Literally everything. 23

Craigardan summer residents in the garden, by Jeff Mertz

SATURDAYFARMSHARE

BOOKGARDAN: SEED SAVERS By Kate Moses “I am interested in writing away the invisibility of women’s lives, looking at writing as an act of redemption. In order to do this, I need the companionship, the example, of other women who are writing.” —Canadian novelist Carol Shields

could join whenever they could snatch the time – in the middle of the night, during naptime, while pumping milk at their desk during lunch break at work. Buried deep in the soil of Bookgardan, Craigardan’s flagship writing program, is the very real impact of one of the first virtual communities of women writers and readers. The collaborative creativity, sisterhood, and antidote to isolation that distinguished Mothers Who Think are now hallmarks of Bookgardan, as are the mentorship and “believing eyes” that I similarly benefitted from during the writing of my first novel, thanks to the friendship and wisdom of legendary biographer Diane Middlebrook. As I wrote my novel about poet Sylvia Plath and Diane wrote a biography of Plath and her husband Ted Hughes, we traded archival material gleaned from library research trips around the US and England, thereby gaining a mutual, unmatchable understanding of each other’s works-in-progress. To whom else but me, her obsessed confederate, could Diane send this unintentionally amusing late-night email: “Where or where have I put SP’s diaphragm? Perhaps you have it?”

“We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in between the domestic chores and obligations. I’m not sure we deserve such a big A-plus for that.” — Toni Morrison Twenty-five years ago, two women writers with uninspiring freelance gigs, four small children, one shared babysitter, and never enough time to write what they wanted to write -- let alone talk to anyone about it -- got an idea during a trip to the zoo with their kids: What if they used this mysterious new thing called the World Wide Web to send stories into the ether about their lives, and the lives of other women like them? “Like them” meaning women who were also struggling to balance the needs of others against their own pressing needs, especially the need to seize their narratives and write them. Would anyone care? And how would we know—waiting in the carpool line at the elementary school or sitting at the dining room table typing with one hand and jiggling a fussy baby with the other?

So gratifying was our literary alliance that when our books were finished and on their way to publication, Diane suggested we start a salon for women writers to talk about their writing, their process, and the challenges they faced, creating a latticework of support for the intertwining of shared knowledge and reciprocal interest in one another’s success. Hundreds of women writers took part in the salon, which originated in our hometown of San Francisco and spread to branches in London and New York; before her untimely death, Diane asked me to keep the San Francisco salon going. Amy Tan, Camille Dungy, Sylvia Brownrigg, Anchee Min, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Lyndall Gordon and Elif

This was back in the Wild West of the internet, back before wifi if you can believe it – when we were still scratching our heads about “e-mail,” whatever that was, and you could count the number of websites floating in cyberspace on one hand. But somehow this experiment in reaching out to other women writers and readers worked: electronic communication opened a dialogue about women’s lives, both outer and inner, that reached across time zones and international borders, starting an ongoing conversation women

Batuman are among the writers who spoke about their work over eighteen years. Many, many more traded professional advice, supported each other’s books, and became friends.

the end of the year, they are loaded with tools to help them keep going. One group of writers is meeting each other for the first time. The residency is a kind of hardening off of their tender cohort before a year of dedicated writing on their own, growing their books-inprogress with the help of regular group check-ins online and monthly manuscript conferences with me. They spend Residency 1 learning about each other’s lives, the names of pets and partners, looking at pictures of kids and talking about what they’re reading and noticing how each of them likes their coffee or tea. They gather every day for seminars on developing their writing practice to meet the challenge of the year to follow as they write alone, back at home, but with the knowledge that they’re now part of an ecosystem of curiosity, encouragement, understanding, and sustained artistic production. It really is kind of a garden, with companion plants all around the country and the soaker hose of Zoom connecting all of us weekly.

“Women have a different kind of conversation when men aren’t around,” Diane had said. When Michele Drozd and I began talking about launching Bookgardan, it was with Diane’s idea of a “different kind” of conversation in mind, a crossfertilizing community, and mentorship. Our goal was that each writer would see her own literary vision growing before her eyes, and also feel the camaraderie, curiosity, and faith of an intimate circle of peers. “At the end of the day it is all about connection,” says Radhika Shivaraman Iyer of Bookgardan 3. “There is nothing in this world that can be more potent. This I realize now. And that is what writing does, you connect with your deep self . . . ‘We want someone to see us, just the way we want to be seen, we want someone to understand us just the way we want to be understood.’ Those are the most powerful lines in The Great Gatsby, truth lying casually in those pages.”

A second group of writers reunites for their Residency 2, a joyous and satisfying reunion with now familiar and trusted peers. “Often as a writer, I feel removed from the rest of the world, living in my head with my characters,” says Kathy Bratkowski, continuing alum of Bookgardan 1. “Writers and artists tend to be misfits in the regular world. At Craigardan, I felt like I was among my tribe of writers and creatives. And sheep.” Residency 2 feels like a kind of harvest celebration at the culmination of the Bookgardan year, following twelve months of steady fertilization of each writer’s writing practice: those weekly check-ins and advanced-level craft talks with their cohort, Zoom visits with published writers and publishing professionals, “field trips” to online literary events, and many long, deep hours of talking about their growing and changing manuscript, one on one, with me. Just as during Residency 1 each writer gets an evening to introduce herself and her project to the rest of group, during Residency 2 the writers update their cohort on the artistic journey they’ve taken over the year: what surprised them, what challenged

“It is not an exaggeration to say that without Bookgardan, my book would not have been written,” says Karen Hollis, a continuing alum of Bookgardan 2; many of the Bookgardan writers opt to continue their work together and with me at the end of their program year. “The gift of belief in me as a writer, in my emergent work, bestowed by the entire community and set-up, was essential.” Every October for four years, a crop of Bookgardan writers has arrived for the annual program’s week-long residencies, held during the color- and woodsmoke-saturated pageant of leaf season. At each of two intensive residencies, four to six writers live together and share meals, gather for group conferences, wake to yoga or crisp morning walks, write and think, and meet individually with their mentor to plan a year’s work or discuss their progress. Bookgardan is designed to keep the writers’ eyes on the prize of cultivating the novel, essays, memoir, or short story collection that holds their vision as artists. At

them, and what did they learn not only about the story they’re telling, but about themselves.

on the workshop model of participants receiving formal critiques of their work from their peers, each of whom is responsible for reading significant portions of the others’ manuscripts. This practice tends to place an unnecessary burden on the time and attention of writers and can force them into tactical choices for their material when what they and their writing need to develop are creative freedom, a delicate touch, and patience. Instead of workshopping, Bookgardan is structured on intuitive, generative, and organic development of works-in-progress. Freed of the obligation of formal peer review, the cohort gets to know and trust each other through their shared experience during Residency 1, when the writers introduce their projects and evenings culminate in readings of their work to their curious, engaged, and increasingly invested p e e r s . Th o s e s h a re d re a d i n g s c o n t i n u e throughout the year.

“Our in-person residencies were magical,” says Patricia Zaballos, now a continuing alum of Bookgardan 1, “walking in fog past the sheep for morning yoga; looking out at the Adirondacks in their red and gold fall glory; our morning craft talks with coffee and Kate; eating sustaining, delicious meals lovingly prepared for us while chatting about our writing progress; sitting beside Kate in golden afternoon light, discussing my project; evening gatherings and readings with inspiring writers; sitting side-by-side at wheels in the ceramic studio, giggling at our slumping clay; and the nighttime readings and discussions of our projects—with lots of laughter and some tears— which were the heart of the experience.” What makes Bookgardan unique among the expanding field of low-residency writing and book cultivation programs is first, as the name suggests, its demonstration of Craigardan’s values, with two a n c h o r i n g , p l a c e - b a s e d re s i d e n c i e s a n d collaborative experiences to encourage artistic growth and collective problem solving. “I arrived at Craigardan fairly confident in my work, but still daunted by the task of actually finishing a book,” says Maureen Cummins, a Bookgardan 1 Alum who spent two years with her cohort before taking a hiatus to concentrate on completion of her final manuscript draft. “I no longer doubt my ability to complete a manuscript; it is now only a question of time.”

“What bonded our group together were the shared readings, the intense immersion in each other’s work,” says Maureen. “The readings!” Anna Soref, Bookgardan 2 continuing alum, says with enthusiasm. “Each night gathering in the living room with chocolate and wine and lots of pages to read aloud.” “Having other writers witness my work in our shared evening readings took my project out of my head, made it more real, and encouraged me to want to get it out in the world,” says Patricia. “Bringing my work to that beautiful country in the Adirondacks gave my project a sort of sacredness that it didn’t have when I worked alone at my desk at home.”

“I was drawn to Bookgardan because of the opportunity to collaborate with women writers and cultivate a community,” says Lisa Rizzo, a Bookgardan 2 continuing alum whose cohort was five months into their year when COVID-19 forced global shutdowns. “I’m thankful that our cohort was able to have our first residency in person, to actually be with each other. The intimacy we gained has helped keep me going during the pandemic.”

Residential arts organizations everywhere have had to find ways to adapt how they serve artists through the COVID-19 crisis, and Bookgardan is no different. Our third cohort had to begin with a virtual Residency 1 in the fall of 2020, which posed a real challenge to create an online experience that could build the kind of nuanced intimacy gained from spending a week together under one roof. Bookgardan 2’s Residency 2 also had to segue to an online format. “From the respect and love that flowed among the writers during our

That intimacy is perhaps what’s most unique about Bookgardan, and it develops out of the program’s intentional structure. Most writing programs rely

retreat in the Adirondacks a kinship formed. When COVID hit, that bond kept our group and writing alive,” says Anna. “Seeing the faces of my fellow writers each week on the computer screen kept me accountable. Not just to write, but to the writerly life. I loved taking time for personal bits -like Deirdre’s tour through her COVID-retreat cabin in the woods.” Karen Hollis, also a continuing alum in Bookgardan 2, says, “During times of hardship in life in general and at sticky, discouraging points in my manuscript, the weekly check-ins and continuing craft work with women who cared whether or not I was writing kept me moving forward.”

and become important persons in my life. Above all, perhaps, Kate understands my approach and continually pushes me towards a deeper connection to my own story.” Kris and Tracy’s companion in Bookgardan 3, Julie Haupert, agrees: “Really, it would take a lifetime to even begin to say how my life has been transformed by this experience, the gardan, and Kate, its master gardener. Sometimes you just need to trust the creator within you and dig in, deeply, to the process. The seed was planted so long ago.” And Julie’s right, of course – like anything else Bookgardan is going to give back to its writers in the proportion to what they bring to it themselves. That’s always were we start on day one of Residency 1, with the famous quote from Robert Frost: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” You have to bring your heart to your story in all the ways that means something to you, in all the ways your story matters to your life. It’s all about connection, as Radhika says. And if you can do that, Bookgardan is designed to sustain you as you get your words on the page.

But what of Bookgardan 3, stuck in lockdown as their program year began? Would supply kits with recipe suggestions for shared meals, candles and essential oils for atmosphere, books and pens and scrapbooks and of course tea, coffee, and really good chocolate bridge the gap between sitting around a table together and seeing each other’s faces over Zoom? Tracy Mayo of the current cohort offers her take on Bookgardan, pandemic style: “Who knew a pandemic cohort could be so much fun? It’s been a ten-month celebration of words, ideas, and friendships. That we’ve only met virtually (soon to change) has proven, surprisingly, to be only the slightest negative. And Kate is amazing. Her wise mentoring, skillful teaching and ever-present encouragement have lifted us all. Our weekly lessons have demystified the writing process and empowered my creative genius to come out and play. I will leave our upcoming residency with a grateful heart, full from the support and brilliance of my cohort.”

“Bookgardan opened up the act of writing itself to a larger context: not only a brilliant mentor, supportive readers, and craft talks, but the connection to other forms of nourishment that affect how and even what I write. Without this experience my memoir would be infinitely poorer, disconnected from the landscape in which I write, the food I eat, who grows and prepares it, who sits at the table alongside me literally and metaphorically.”

Kris Haines-Sharp of Bookgardan 3 feels that despite being virtual so far – our fingers are still crossed for an in-person Residency 2 in October of this year – for her, Bookgardan has been “Nothing less than a metamorphosis, from ‘a person who loves to write’ to ‘a writer who usually loves to write.’ This is the gift of Bookgardan in my life. From the first days of our virtual retreat, Kate fostered a community of smart and interesting women and these writers have stayed the course

– Karen Hollis, Bookgardan 2