Is this the coolest writer-in-residence program ever? - Los Angeles Times
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Is this the coolest writer-in-residence program ever?

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The Paris Review has teamed up with the Standard East Village so the hotel can offer its first writer-in-residence program next year. For three weeks, the selected writer will get a free stylish hotel room at the Standard in Lower Manhattan. And free continental breakfast. And free coffee.

All of which is pretty cool.

On the downside, the residency will be in January, and New York City in the winter can be harsh. Then again, it will be in New York City, which is rare.

The best residency programs all sound ideal — a free room of one’s own and uninterrrupted writing time for weeks on end. But many are located away from the hubub of cities — Yaddo is in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., MacDowell is in Peterborogh, N.H., and Ucross is in the high plains of Wyoming. That’s great for getting writing done, but they really aren’t the kind of places where you can pop out to catch up with friends or visit a museum or see a band play to clear your head.

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Which you can do in New York City. And if you tried to rent a hotel room yourself for three weeks, you’d easily be racking up a credit card bill of $10,000 or more.

To be eligible for the Standard East Village’s writer-in-residence program, you need to provide an excerpt of a work in progress of up to 50 pages; a letter from the publisher confirming that the work is under contract; and a cover letter explaining how the residency would benefit your work in progress.

Applications are being taken until Nov. 1.

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