Weymouth Residency Recap
Dear Hugo,
The good news is that I didn't forget how to write things that aren't emails.
The Weymouth Center/Boyd House was great. I had a quiet, sunny room to myself for two weeks in North Carolina. And it wasn't even on a former plantation!
(It was on a former country retreat of a once-popular novelist, drunkard, and foxhunting enthusiast. Still an improvement!)
No relation
I'm the top brood bitch, call that a Bryn Mawr Hound Show
The bad news, I guess, is that two weeks is both very long and very short - about the longest period of time I could feasibly be away from my normal life. But not long enough to finish two research-heavy book chapters. I got more written than I thought I would, but less of it is finished than I had hoped. Let's call it 20,000 words, half of that usable. So I just need to do this about 5 more times.
Still, I did visit an abandoned ancestral graveyard in in Chatham County, after getting lost in the woods for a good hour.
And of course I found some fun old time news articles.
"It is a known fact that there is a baby in Kansas, who, at the age of six weeks, began to prophesy a six years' drought in that State."
Next research rabbit hole: What became of the Kansas Famine Prophet-Baby?
Also relating to Kansas, and ways to escape it:
Another research rabbit hole: Was the Wizard of Oz's vehicle a former Civil War surveillance balloon??
I think you enjoyed hanging out with Granny and Grandpa (I heard a lot about the giant porcupine at the zoo), but you were also ready to go home after two weeks. I'm not sure if I'll be welcome back at Weymouth, seeing as I am testing exactly how Suggested their Suggested Donation policy is, but I have applied for a couple more residencies even farther afield. Massachusetts. Portugal! Not sure my odds of acceptance or ability to pay, but we'll see how it shakes out.
Love,
M.