Microdosing residencies

I write this from the sidelines of my son’s swim lesson. The classes are set up fishbowl-style, with parents in chairs on the grassy hill next to the pool, and they last half an hour. As I write this, there are roughly 30 parents—adults with jobs and hobbies and relationships languishing from neglect—sitting around me, not interacting with their kids (who are busy in the pool) but still unable to make use of the time, messing around on their phones or doing absolutely nothing. It’s 2025 and we live in a progressive suburb where parenthood is rigorous and all-encompassing; no way is anyone just leaving their not-yet-proficient swimmers in the care of the tired young instructors while they go run an errand or whatever. Even if that means they will have to run the errand later with wet, grouchy children in tow.

I’m happy to be here, of course. My kids need to learn how to swim, of course, and I find tremendous joy and fulfillment in watching them master new skills, OF COURSE. But also, if these are going to be the only 30 minutes all day where my hands are free, it’s at least a little bit frustrating that I have to spend them trapped next to a pool.

I was thinking about this at last week’s lesson, wondering at the state of modern parenting and how it all but demands that parents spend every second serving their children. I’m NOT talking about actually doing things with them, which obviously is the core of parenting—anyone who doesn’t want to do things with their kids shouldn’t be a parent, probably. We love our children, and by choosing to have them we signed on for spending time actually with them! I’m talking about dividing life between paid work (that provides income for the children) and housework (including cooking for the children, cleaning up after the children, and conducting all the admin that goes into keeping children safe and on track—like signing up for county swim lessons in the 10 minutes before they’re all full), with negligible or no time left over in between those modes to take a shower. And I’m also talking about things like sitting passively by a pool while a child learns to swim, then immediately plunging back into active duty the moment the lesson ends—again, without a moment in there to slink away for so much as a coffee.

And so just before this week’s lesson, I had a stroke of inspiration and I stuck my laptop in my on-the-go backpack. And as soon as I booted it up, I had a sense memory of sitting under the same intense sun last summer, listening to the same soundtrack of splashes and squeals, chlorinated blue water glittering just out of focus as I clawed my way through the climax of my novel draft.

I had forgotten this until just now, but I wrote some of the most difficult parts of THE GREAT WHEREVER in the half hour (well, not counting the time spent coaxing my son to the pool, helping him out of his Crocs, then helping him back into his Crocs on the other end, let’s call it…27 minutes) of each of those weekday-morning swim lessons. I didn’t set word-count goals, because in Novelville it’s easy to spend 27 minutes writing and then deleting the same sentence a dozen times. Hell, it’s easy to net negative words, if you let yourself glance back at old sections during the writing session. Instead, I just let a voice in my head yell Let’s get something done! You have 27 minutes!!!! and then it was a sprint to the moment when I had to shut my laptop before a wet six-year-old came and drenched it with pool water.

A tangent: I had a weird experience a couple years ago that I’ve never gotten to unpack. Maybe you can help me.

I was at a literary event in another city in the days before my first book came out. The event was hosted by my first publisher, Graywolf Press, and there were a bunch of cool people there representing various ties to the literary community and publishing industry.

I ended up in a conversation with this one person, whose name I don’t remember (though I wouldn’t say if I did), about the writers’ residency where she worked, whose name I don’t remember (though, see above). She was talking up the residency to me and another Graywolf author, listing its alums, telling us about the thoughtful amenities they offer the writers who spend time there. She mentioned that most (not all) writers chose to stay for at least two weeks, but mostly more like four to six.

I told her it sounded amazing and that I’d love to do a residency like that (like that!) someday. Then I said something like, “And [not but!] I have three little kids, so I have this dream that I could figure out how to have my family come stay close by, and maybe do a much shorter stay so my husband and I wouldn’t have to miss too much work—”

“Well,” said this person whose name I don’t remember, who just a second earlier had been telling me how wonderful this particular residency was, “this one isn’t like that.” And then she turned away and continued the conversation with the author next to me.

Did I hedge enough in my description above? I don’t think I was presumptuous in what I said to her. I don’t think I gave the impression that I thought this informal conversation was my chance to shoot my shot at getting her in particular to let me in particular do a tailored version of the residency she had just described. I had honestly thought we were just having a conversation about residencies themselves and how they can theoretically be most helpful to writers! I wasn’t dissing her four-to-six-week family-unfriendly residency! (Though I know it sounds like I am in this retelling.)

I replayed that conversation a bunch of times that night in my hotel room. It was the first official stop on my tour for Company, and my first overnight stay away from all three kids, so I had plenty of Thinking Time. I’m not bad at reading tone, and hers had suggested that I’d given offense by bringing up the heightened needs of parent-writers considering residencies. Which needs, to be clear, I understand most residencies can’t meet. And I thought I detected, mixed in, a little hint of the more general Ugh, parents think the world should revolve around their kids. A reaction I veer VERY far out of my way to not provoke. But did I fail here? Did I offend her by mentioning that I might be able to consider a residency if it were structured a little differently?

Hold enough conversations among writers, and residencies will come up again and again, often cited as the godsent miracles that ushered some of our favorite books into the world. That author you love? Wrote the bulk of her latest masterpiece at MacDowell. Those short stories you just added to your syllabus? Were all conceived at Kimbilio. Residencies are often housed at secluded, scenic places (they have names like The Porches! The Porches!). Meals are probably provided, and they might even be shared with illustrious faculty who might blurb the book you write there. They last weeks, and the time away from home—from your sink full of dishes, your reliable cell-phone reception—is just disruptive enough to your psyche to knock loose stuck ideas. It’s summer camp for writers, and you already know I believe in the transformative power of summer camp. You can spend hours writing, breaking only to go drink wine around a campfire with other people who spent hours writing. So I hear.

Obviously, there are like one thousand ways in which the average residency is inaccessible to the average writer, and maybe two thousand ways in which it is inaccessible to the average parent-writer. Even a parent-writer with a solid partner who is part of a community. Just to name a few: What if you’re nursing? What if you and your partner have divided the household labor in such a way that the house can’t run for two weeks without your contributions? (This is almost every mom I know, by the way.) What if your work only grants 10 days of PTO, and you have to save up for the next time your kids get HFM? Or used them all up last time?

And then there is the price tag. Some residencies are partially covered, some fully, but many require a four-figure investment (including two-way travel), plus whatever other money you’d have to spend to outsource childcare and send takeout a couple times to show your partner you appreciate their sacrifice. Mileages vary on this, but my personal standard is that my writing life isn’t allowed to take money out of my kids’ pockets. I have to stay in the black, whether that’s through book advances or selling individual stories or teaching classes. Never say never, but at this stage, I can’t spend several thousand dollars and burn all my vacation time to go away from my kids, leaving my husband to struggle through mealtimes and commutes and bedtimes without me, without the promise of…something on the other side. A finished draft or a very enriching new relationship.

To be clear, there are a few billed as specifically family-friendly. I know people who have done them, and swear by them! But on the whole, they work best for people with only one child and a partner who either doesn’t work or works remotely. Or people with an available grandparent who wholly and happily supports the journey. My parents are very supportive, but four weeks in a hotel room (that they or I would have to pay for) in rural Virginia, caring for my kids (back when I had three under three) so I could go to writer camp???? No fucking way.

(Here I have to shout out my husband, who brought our first toddler to New York with me in 2019 so I could do a workshop without stopping breastfeeding before I wanted to—but that was a week, and we stayed for free at my brother’s place, and it actually did lead to one of the most exciting publications of my career! But also, per my policy, I stayed in the black for that trip.)

Over the past couple of years, as my kids gradually got older, I got ambitious and applied for a couple of residencies I really, really wanted to do. And guess what? I got accepted, and in one case was even offered a fellowship that would have covered my stay (though not the transportation, and of course not the other incidental expenses, like affectionate takeout for my husband). But here’s the thing. You apply for the residency knowing you’ll hear back in six months, and you tell yourself things will be easier by then. Because kids change constantly! Six months ago, I would never have imagined my kids doing some of the things they did today. But then six months rolls around, and while, yes, they can now spread peanut butter on their own sandwiches, there are still breakfasts and dinners to make every single day, karate lessons to get to, all the intricate logistics it takes to move three children from place to place to place (not necessarily the same places).

And so twice now, I’ve gotten those acceptances and had to turn them down—as promptly as possible, so they can hopefully benefit another writer in a different situation. Because the world doesn’t revolve around my kids, even if my world does, and I don’t want to be one of those parents who asks for a million special allowances when I should just say thanks but I can’t right now. And I’ve been upset each time, because the Community’s propaganda has worked on me, convincing me that I’ve just signed away my ticket to finishing a book—

But feelings aren’t rational. Because I actually have finished a book. I’ve finished two of them! Just not in two weeks.

So here’s what I offer to anyone feeling like me.

Would a residency be amazing? Of course it would. You remember summer camp. What a joy it would be. You would feel free and feral. You would experience connection that is not possible in regular workaday life. Your manuscript would turn soft and pliable in your hands and become perfect just in time for you to pack up your things and board the return-trip plane. Or if that didn’t happen, at least you would know. It’s okay to want to do that and to feel sad if you don’t get to! It doesn’t make you a bad parent to wish you could step away for 14-28 of 365 days to immerse yourself in the draft of the project you love so badly that it hurts for it to live in your brain instead of on the page.

Okay? I validate you in that yearning. But now I have some (TW: tough love) tough love.

If you have multiple kids under age 9 and a day job, you might not be able to make a residency work until one of those things changes. Your partner might offer to make significant temporary sacrifices to help make it possible; it’s okay if you take an honest look at the situation and determine that it’s not practical. It’s okay. Wanting to check in on what your kids are eating for dinner or wearing to school at least a couple times in a two-week period doesn’t make you a micromanager or mean you don’t trust your partner or have undiagnosed anxiety; it means you’re an involved parent, just as you are for the rest of the year. Similarly, your boss might be required by law to let you take the time off, but they might…not…like it. And if you have the type of work that piles up (rather than just being reassigned in your absence), you might not like that you did it, either.

And if you are parenting solo, or breastfeeding/pumping, or if your kids have needs that only you can meet (at least right now), then you hardly need me to tell you that it’s not the right time.

Also? Applying for stuff that you can’t feasibly do isn’t a great idea. Getting accepted is an ego boost, sure. But you might not get accepted; and even if you do, applications cost money and time, and turning down opportunities that you wanted is painful. (Though silently watching other writers enjoy them is nice.) And the absolute best news I can offer you is that attending a residency is actually not a requirement. You can publish a book, or books, without it. You can meet other writers through social media, or at book events that only take up 90 minutes instead of four weeks. And residencies will still exist when your situation changes.

So here is my suggestion instead. I’m not saying it’s a great alternative. I’m just saying it’s an alternative. Were all the words I wrote at the pool last summer perfect? Very much no, but they got me to a finished draft, which got me to a second draft, and eventually to a near-final draft.

And so: Do your kids do an activity where you have to be present, but not actively? Is there a pool waiting area/karate studio/such as, where you have ~27-minute stretches of forced idleness? You can’t help, but you can’t leave either? It’s technically peak daytime, but time for you has stopped?

Here’s the news: This is your residency. It’s regular time that you have (probably) paid for, and you will never get it back, whether or not your kids pass the swim test at the end.

Okay? Get to writing!