The idea is that a change in setting is generative, helping students find new ways of thinking about their writing and the themes that run through it—often collectively. Indeed, students will be encouraged to collaborate on projects that combine different media, platforms and languages, and to integrate impressions from their surroundings. Through exposure to the variety of creative processes around them—Royaumont Abbey also hosts residencies in music and dance—students will gain new perspectives on their own work that may even influence the structure of their initial projects.
Students will write daily, using prompts from faculty and guest lecturers, and will gain inspiration from discussion with all participants, as well as from the wooded surroundings and other artists and writers in residence. “Engaging with the immediate environment around you is so important,” says Professor Biswamit Dwibedy, who has helped facilitate a workshop on eco-poetics led by Paris-based poet and translator Cole Swenson. The practices of other contemporary writers such as Alice Notley, Lisa Robertson and Claudia Rankine also serve as inspiration for thematic- or poetics-based workshops.
As students spend most of the day writing and attend faculty readings in the evening, they will also be encouraged to embrace the strong historical component of this retreat and to consider how their own projects may find a place in literary history. Being part of Royaumont means joining the ranks of many great writers, including AUP alumni who have gone on to successful careers writing, translating, publishing and even running prestigious creative writing programs themselves. Our faculty can not wait to see what the next cohort of AUP writers will do.
