QUT creative writing academic, award-winning poet, editor and critic Sarah Holland-Batt will join the most prestigious writers' colony in the United States for a five-week fellowship at the end of February.
The senior lecturer from QUT's Creative Industry faculty will use her time at Yaddo in New York to commence work on the manuscript of her third book of poems.
Founded in 1900 by the financier Spencer Trask and his poet wife Katrina, Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400-acre estate in Saratoga Springs.
Previous visitors to the community have included Truman Capote, Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Mario Puzo, Jennifer Egan, John Cheever, Janet Frame, Philip Roth, Amy Tan, Jay McInerney and Alice Walker. Collectively, artists who have worked at Yaddo have won 71 Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other literary awards.
Ms Holland-Batt's said her residency would allow her to focus intensively on her own work in the company of some of the most exciting writers, composers and other creative artists in the world.
"A residency at Yaddo is an amazing opportunity to work alongside some of the most interesting and talented writers and artists in the world," Ms Holland-Batt said.
"I've found that working in these environments provides the right support and solitude to produce fresh ideas. There are none of the usual day-to-day demands all writers face—residencies at places like Yaddo really cultivate the ideal climate for artists to produce their best work without distractions."
Yaddo aims to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment. They are selected by panels of other professional artists, with residencies lasting from two weeks to two months and include room, board, and studio.
Ms Holland-Batt was also recently awarded $40,000 by the Australia Council in New Work Grant funding and has just returned from Hawthornden Castle Writers Retreat in Scotland. In 2013 she had a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and in 2010 was the recipient of the esteemed W.G. Walker Memorial Fulbright Scholarship.
Her first book, Aria, was published in 2008 and collected a number of national literary awards, including the Thomas Shapcott Prize for Poetry, the Arts ACT Judith Wright Poetry Prize and the FAW Anne Elder Award.
Ms Holland-Batt's second collection of poems - The Hazards - will be published in June this year.
Media contact:
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 9449, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901.
