Skip To Menu
Skip To Content
Skip To Accessibility Options
Skip To Language Options
Providence Commemoration Lab

A collaboration of the Providence Department of Art, Culture and Tourism and the Rhode Island Historical Society. Funded in part by the Mellon Foundation and the American Rescue Plan.

Providence Commemoration Lab Writing Residency Request for Qualifications

Roger Williams Monument, Roger Williams Park

Summary

The Providence Commemoration Lab Writing Residency is a nine-month program that complements the Providence Commemoration Lab (PCL). The Residency will commission, support, and publish exploratory and place-based arts writing from three authors, writing in dialogue with the Lab’s nine site-specific engagements in Providence. Dr. Liz Maynard will serve as the facilitator and editor in the co-creation of an interdisciplinary and emergent residency process and publication.

ACT and RIHS will commission three authors to write three texts each that address different stages of the PCL’s artists’ process over the course of their 2024-2025 fellowships: development/design; production/implementation; and presentation to the public of the works. The artists will site and stage new, temporary projects on public property that invite unexpected ways of understanding commemoration as a communal process of historical redress and spatial reclamation at Columbus Square, Roger Williams Park, and Public Street. More information about the PCL can be found here. Residency authors’ correlative work will serve as archival “documents” of the process and offer critical perspectives on and interpretations of the work. 

The Residency is place-based and durational; each author is linked to one of the three sites and research, writing and publication will align with the unfolding timeline of the PCL artists. It includes a $10,000 stipend paid out in conjunction with publication in three stages. The Residency is conceptualized and facilitated by Liz Maynard, art historian, educator, writer, and editor, to support and expand arts writing (adventurously conceived) in Providence through a collaborative and community-driven model. 

Please see our FAQ, which will be updated until noon May 24th. To submit questions to the FAQ please contact Editor Liz Maynard at PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the email subject “Residency FAQ.” An info session for interested parties will take place at noon on May, 25 2024. To participate, send an email with the subject heading “Residency Info Session” to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com. 

Program Goals

The primary goal of the Commemoration Conversations Writing Residency is to create a platform for writers to explore expansive definitions of arts writing. The Commemoration Lab encourages Providence residents to own and be accountable to new commemorative traditions. Writing is yet another way to explore by whom, for whom, and how stories get told, and also, by extension, how history is written.

The primary intended beneficiaries of this project are members of the Providence arts community, whose practices and impact are insufficiently documented or treated with much deserved critical attention. The producers hope that the Residency will foster arts writing in the “creative capital” for the benefit of artist practitioners in all media as well as writing as its own rich art form. Fostering a varied arts discourse in Providence broadens public conversations around our shared spaces.

Ultimately, the Residency aims to bolster arts infrastructure in Providence. PCL’s intention is to activate neighborhood stakeholder groups and encourage civic participation. Building a discourse and an archive of arts writing offers another way for Providence’s publics to engage vital questions about community, memory, and history in a processual and relational container. We hope this endeavor will generate momentum for others to support arts writing as meaningful cultural production in Providence.

Writing Format

Residency authors will write three texts each, addressing three different stages of the Lab artists’ work over the course of their 2024-2025 fellowships: development/design; production/implementation, and presentation to the public of the works. These texts will be published in three stages, contingent on and correlative with the ongoing schedule of the Lab. We envisage the development and publication of these texts as mirroring the iterative and collaborative ethos of the Commemoration Lab.  

 In support of fostering an expansive definition of “arts writing,” each writer will be supported as they explore three distinct formats:  

  • a long-form (4,000-5,000 words), research-driven text, that examines the site, including (but not limited to) its history, publics, and the structure of the Commemoration Lab;
  • an interpretive prose/poetry piece (a collection of poems, illustrations, evocative text etc.) illuminating some facet of the site/work explored in the long-form text; and 
  • a collaborative text that includes the voices of the artists and community members of the site and situates the artists/work in its place and amongst its publics.  

The texts will be hosted on the Providence Commemoration Lab website and printed in a less media-rich format in a commemorative publication to be shared with Lab participants, libraries and archives. Illustrations and multimedia activations of the text are encouraged and supported.

Location and Siting of PCL

Columbus Square is a small park between two busy roads in the Elmwood section of the City. It was previously the home of a controversial Bertholdi Columbus statue, fabricated at the nearby Gorham Manufacturing Company and gifted to the City by local elites at the end of the 19th century.

Roger Williams Park, also known as “the people’s park,” is 102 acres of green space on the City’s southern border with neighboring Cranston. An important part of the area watershed, still recovering from decades of industrial harm, the park has numerous commemorative works scattered throughout its grounds.

Public Street between Broad Street and the industrial waterfront was once a thriving saltmarsh. Walking to the eastern edge of Public Street is a reminder that the tidal shifts and brackish water of the river still host a biologically rich and culturally diverse ecosystem. Click here for information about proposed designs advanced by the Office of Sustainability for the area between Allens Ave. and the Providence River.

The three priority public sites (all are on public property) proposed for Providence Commemoration Lab have been selected because they pose critical questions about the practical and philosophical realities of commemoration in the City. Further, they have already been embraced by various stakeholder communities.

Scope of Work and Pay Structure

Upon award notification and acceptance, the author shall sign a contract with the City and RIHS for the activities outlined below:

  • Participate in regularly scheduled check-ins with the Residency Editor.
  • Attend methodology workshops and two cohort meetings for mutual writing and revision support. 
  • Attend community engagement activities of their particular site, as artists will be immersing themselves with their site’s stakeholder communities to develop and lead arts-based organizing strategies.
  • Engage with Commemoration Lab artists to understand the processes by which they create their place-based works.
  • Participate in an unveiling and dedication ceremony in summer 2025.

Each writer will receive a $10,000 stipend to support the research, writing, and revision process, with an up-front award of $1000 and then $3,000 disbursed with the publication of each of the three works. Publication on the Providence Communication Lab website is contingent upon editor approval. 

Eligibility

Upon award notification and acceptance, the author shall sign a contract with the City and RIHS for the activities outlined below:

  • Participate in regularly scheduled check-ins with the Residency Editor.
  • Attend methodology workshops and two cohort meetings for mutual writing and revision support. 
  • Attend community engagement activities of their particular site, as artists will be immersing themselves with their site’s stakeholder communities to develop and lead arts-based organizing strategies.
  • Engage with Commemoration Lab artists to understand the processes by which they create their place-based works.
  • Participate in an unveiling and dedication ceremony in summer 2025.

Each writer will receive a $10,000 stipend to support the research, writing, and revision process, with an up-front award of $1000 and then $3,000 disbursed with the publication of each of the three works. Publication on the Providence Communication Lab website is contingent upon editor approval. 

Residency Selection Process and Timeline

Applications will be received until 11:59: PM June 7, 2024, when they will be reviewed by a team of three jurors. Residency writers will be notified by June 25th.

Qualified authors may submit their cover letter, resume/CV, and writing samples by 11:59: PM June 7, 2024 to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the subject line “Residency Application.” 

Please attach each file with your name and document as the file name (for example “name coverletter.pdf” or “name sample1.pdf”)

An info session for interested parties will take place at noon on May, 25 2024. To participate send an email with the subject heading “Residency Info Session” to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com. Questions received by Editor Liz Maynard by noon on May 24, 2024 will be collated in a shared FAQ.

Selection Criteria

Writers will be selected based on the following criteria as evidenced by their submitted materials:

  • Strength of writing practice that engages issues of community, memory, and process.
  • Relationship of the author’s method of engagement to the context of the Program Goals stated above.
  • Writing excellence and innovation, as evidenced by previous work.
  • Proven capacity to, or articulated interest in learning to, work with an editor to complete projects on time.
  • Cultural humility and respect for collaboration; experience working with diverse populations; and demonstrated interest in working with Providence residents to co-create a final work.

To Submit

To apply, email PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the subject line “Residency Application” by 11:59 PM, June 7, 2024.

Submission Checklist:

Please attach each file with your name and document as the file name (for example “name coverletter.pdf” or “name sample1.pdf”)

Cover Letter of 1-2 pages:

Please tell us what excites you about the Commemoration Lab and the Writing Residency? How do you see yourself positioned to succeed in the proposed role? If you have a preference, please speak to your interest to work at any of the three PCL sites. Please review the eligibility section and speak to these qualifiers as part of your cover letter.

How do you understand the form and function of writing in cultivating the arts community? What is your experience with and interest in writing in different formats? What are you interested in exploring in your own writing practice? 

CV/Resume and References:  

A resume/CV of no more than 3 (three) pages in length.

Your resume must include three professional/personal references. You should include the references’ names, contact information, and position.

A portfolio of 3 to 5 writing samples:

For each writing sample submitted, the following should be included:

  • Title
  • Year of completion
  • Brief description of text (100 words or less); please include the genre (exhibition review, prose, poem, academic text, news article, etc.) commissioning/publishing entity (if applicable), and state your role in the creation of the artwork if other authors/artists were involved in its creation.

A publication sample is not required for its inclusion in the portfolio. Cumulative texts should not exceed 5000 words. Consider submitting a variety of lengths and formats to demonstrate range.

Providence Commemoration Lab Writing Residency Request for Qualifications

Roger Williams Monument, Roger Williams Park

Summary

The Providence Commemoration Lab Writing Residency is a nine-month program that complements the Providence Commemoration Lab (PCL). The Residency will commission, support, and publish exploratory and place-based arts writing from three authors, writing in dialogue with the Lab’s nine site-specific engagements in Providence. Dr. Liz Maynard will serve as the facilitator and editor in the co-creation of an interdisciplinary and emergent residency process and publication.

ACT and RIHS will commission three authors to write three texts each that address different stages of the PCL’s artists’ process over the course of their 2024-2025 fellowships: development/design; production/implementation; and presentation to the public of the works. The artists will site and stage new, temporary projects on public property that invite unexpected ways of understanding commemoration as a communal process of historical redress and spatial reclamation at Columbus Square, Roger Williams Park, and Public Street. More information about the PCL can be found here. Residency authors’ correlative work will serve as archival “documents” of the process and offer critical perspectives on and interpretations of the work. 

The Residency is place-based and durational; each author is linked to one of the three sites and research, writing and publication will align with the unfolding timeline of the PCL artists. It includes a $10,000 stipend paid out in conjunction with publication in three stages. The Residency is conceptualized and facilitated by Liz Maynard, art historian, educator, writer, and editor, to support and expand arts writing (adventurously conceived) in Providence through a collaborative and community-driven model. 

Please see our FAQ, which will be updated until noon May 24th. To submit questions to the FAQ please contact Editor Liz Maynard at PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the email subject “Residency FAQ.” An info session for interested parties will take place at noon on May, 25 2024. To participate, send an email with the subject heading “Residency Info Session” to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com. 

Program Goals

The primary goal of the Commemoration Conversations Writing Residency is to create a platform for writers to explore expansive definitions of arts writing. The Commemoration Lab encourages Providence residents to own and be accountable to new commemorative traditions. Writing is yet another way to explore by whom, for whom, and how stories get told, and also, by extension, how history is written.

The primary intended beneficiaries of this project are members of the Providence arts community, whose practices and impact are insufficiently documented or treated with much deserved critical attention. The producers hope that the Residency will foster arts writing in the “creative capital” for the benefit of artist practitioners in all media as well as writing as its own rich art form. Fostering a varied arts discourse in Providence broadens public conversations around our shared spaces.

Ultimately, the Residency aims to bolster arts infrastructure in Providence. PCL’s intention is to activate neighborhood stakeholder groups and encourage civic participation. Building a discourse and an archive of arts writing offers another way for Providence’s publics to engage vital questions about community, memory, and history in a processual and relational container. We hope this endeavor will generate momentum for others to support arts writing as meaningful cultural production in Providence.

Writing Format

Residency authors will write three texts each, addressing three different stages of the Lab artists’ work over the course of their 2024-2025 fellowships: development/design; production/implementation, and presentation to the public of the works. These texts will be published in three stages, contingent on and correlative with the ongoing schedule of the Lab. We envisage the development and publication of these texts as mirroring the iterative and collaborative ethos of the Commemoration Lab.  

 In support of fostering an expansive definition of “arts writing,” each writer will be supported as they explore three distinct formats:  

  • a long-form (4,000-5,000 words), research-driven text, that examines the site, including (but not limited to) its history, publics, and the structure of the Commemoration Lab;
  • an interpretive prose/poetry piece (a collection of poems, illustrations, evocative text etc.) illuminating some facet of the site/work explored in the long-form text; and 
  • a collaborative text that includes the voices of the artists and community members of the site and situates the artists/work in its place and amongst its publics.  

The texts will be hosted on the Providence Commemoration Lab website and printed in a less media-rich format in a commemorative publication to be shared with Lab participants, libraries and archives. Illustrations and multimedia activations of the text are encouraged and supported.

Location and Siting of PCL

Columbus Square is a small park between two busy roads in the Elmwood section of the City. It was previously the home of a controversial Bertholdi Columbus statue, fabricated at the nearby Gorham Manufacturing Company and gifted to the City by local elites at the end of the 19th century.

Roger Williams Park, also known as “the people’s park,” is 102 acres of green space on the City’s southern border with neighboring Cranston. An important part of the area watershed, still recovering from decades of industrial harm, the park has numerous commemorative works scattered throughout its grounds.

Public Street between Broad Street and the industrial waterfront was once a thriving saltmarsh. Walking to the eastern edge of Public Street is a reminder that the tidal shifts and brackish water of the river still host a biologically rich and culturally diverse ecosystem. Click here for information about proposed designs advanced by the Office of Sustainability for the area between Allens Ave. and the Providence River.

The three priority public sites (all are on public property) proposed for Providence Commemoration Lab have been selected because they pose critical questions about the practical and philosophical realities of commemoration in the City. Further, they have already been embraced by various stakeholder communities.

Scope of Work and Pay Structure

Upon award notification and acceptance, the author shall sign a contract with the City and RIHS for the activities outlined below:

  • Participate in regularly scheduled check-ins with the Residency Editor.
  • Attend methodology workshops and two cohort meetings for mutual writing and revision support. 
  • Attend community engagement activities of their particular site, as artists will be immersing themselves with their site’s stakeholder communities to develop and lead arts-based organizing strategies.
  • Engage with Commemoration Lab artists to understand the processes by which they create their place-based works.
  • Participate in an unveiling and dedication ceremony in summer 2025.

Each writer will receive a $10,000 stipend to support the research, writing, and revision process, with an up-front award of $1000 and then $3,000 disbursed with the publication of each of the three works. Publication on the Providence Communication Lab website is contingent upon editor approval. 

Eligibility

Upon award notification and acceptance, the author shall sign a contract with the City and RIHS for the activities outlined below:

  • Participate in regularly scheduled check-ins with the Residency Editor.
  • Attend methodology workshops and two cohort meetings for mutual writing and revision support. 
  • Attend community engagement activities of their particular site, as artists will be immersing themselves with their site’s stakeholder communities to develop and lead arts-based organizing strategies.
  • Engage with Commemoration Lab artists to understand the processes by which they create their place-based works.
  • Participate in an unveiling and dedication ceremony in summer 2025.

Each writer will receive a $10,000 stipend to support the research, writing, and revision process, with an up-front award of $1000 and then $3,000 disbursed with the publication of each of the three works. Publication on the Providence Communication Lab website is contingent upon editor approval. 

Residency Selection Process and Timeline

Applications will be received until 11:59: PM June 7, 2024, when they will be reviewed by a team of three jurors. Residency writers will be notified by June 25th.

Qualified authors may submit their cover letter, resume/CV, and writing samples by 11:59: PM June 7, 2024 to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the subject line “Residency Application.” 

Please attach each file with your name and document as the file name (for example “name coverletter.pdf” or “name sample1.pdf”)

An info session for interested parties will take place at noon on May, 25 2024. To participate send an email with the subject heading “Residency Info Session” to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com. Questions received by Editor Liz Maynard by noon on May 24, 2024 will be collated in a shared FAQ.

Selection Criteria

Writers will be selected based on the following criteria as evidenced by their submitted materials:

  • Strength of writing practice that engages issues of community, memory, and process.
  • Relationship of the author’s method of engagement to the context of the Program Goals stated above.
  • Writing excellence and innovation, as evidenced by previous work.
  • Proven capacity to, or articulated interest in learning to, work with an editor to complete projects on time.
  • Cultural humility and respect for collaboration; experience working with diverse populations; and demonstrated interest in working with Providence residents to co-create a final work.

To Submit

To apply, email PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the subject line “Residency Application” by 11:59 PM, June 7, 2024.

Submission Checklist:

Please attach each file with your name and document as the file name (for example “name coverletter.pdf” or “name sample1.pdf”)

Cover Letter of 1-2 pages:

Please tell us what excites you about the Commemoration Lab and the Writing Residency? How do you see yourself positioned to succeed in the proposed role? If you have a preference, please speak to your interest to work at any of the three PCL sites. Please review the eligibility section and speak to these qualifiers as part of your cover letter.

How do you understand the form and function of writing in cultivating the arts community? What is your experience with and interest in writing in different formats? What are you interested in exploring in your own writing practice? 

CV/Resume and References:  

A resume/CV of no more than 3 (three) pages in length.

Your resume must include three professional/personal references. You should include the references’ names, contact information, and position.

A portfolio of 3 to 5 writing samples:

For each writing sample submitted, the following should be included:

  • Title
  • Year of completion
  • Brief description of text (100 words or less); please include the genre (exhibition review, prose, poem, academic text, news article, etc.) commissioning/publishing entity (if applicable), and state your role in the creation of the artwork if other authors/artists were involved in its creation.

A publication sample is not required for its inclusion in the portfolio. Cumulative texts should not exceed 5000 words. Consider submitting a variety of lengths and formats to demonstrate range.

Providence Commemoration Lab Writing Residency Request for Qualifications

Roger Williams Monument, Roger Williams Park

Summary

The Providence Commemoration Lab Writing Residency is a nine-month program that complements the Providence Commemoration Lab (PCL). The Residency will commission, support, and publish exploratory and place-based arts writing from three authors, writing in dialogue with the Lab’s nine site-specific engagements in Providence. Dr. Liz Maynard will serve as the facilitator and editor in the co-creation of an interdisciplinary and emergent residency process and publication.

ACT and RIHS will commission three authors to write three texts each that address different stages of the PCL’s artists’ process over the course of their 2024-2025 fellowships: development/design; production/implementation; and presentation to the public of the works. The artists will site and stage new, temporary projects on public property that invite unexpected ways of understanding commemoration as a communal process of historical redress and spatial reclamation at Columbus Square, Roger Williams Park, and Public Street. More information about the PCL can be found here. Residency authors’ correlative work will serve as archival “documents” of the process and offer critical perspectives on and interpretations of the work. 

The Residency is place-based and durational; each author is linked to one of the three sites and research, writing and publication will align with the unfolding timeline of the PCL artists. It includes a $10,000 stipend paid out in conjunction with publication in three stages. The Residency is conceptualized and facilitated by Liz Maynard, art historian, educator, writer, and editor, to support and expand arts writing (adventurously conceived) in Providence through a collaborative and community-driven model. 

Please see our FAQ, which will be updated until noon May 24th. To submit questions to the FAQ please contact Editor Liz Maynard at PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the email subject “Residency FAQ.” An info session for interested parties will take place at noon on May, 25 2024. To participate, send an email with the subject heading “Residency Info Session” to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com. 

Program Goals

The primary goal of the Commemoration Conversations Writing Residency is to create a platform for writers to explore expansive definitions of arts writing. The Commemoration Lab encourages Providence residents to own and be accountable to new commemorative traditions. Writing is yet another way to explore by whom, for whom, and how stories get told, and also, by extension, how history is written.

The primary intended beneficiaries of this project are members of the Providence arts community, whose practices and impact are insufficiently documented or treated with much deserved critical attention. The producers hope that the Residency will foster arts writing in the “creative capital” for the benefit of artist practitioners in all media as well as writing as its own rich art form. Fostering a varied arts discourse in Providence broadens public conversations around our shared spaces.

Ultimately, the Residency aims to bolster arts infrastructure in Providence. PCL’s intention is to activate neighborhood stakeholder groups and encourage civic participation. Building a discourse and an archive of arts writing offers another way for Providence’s publics to engage vital questions about community, memory, and history in a processual and relational container. We hope this endeavor will generate momentum for others to support arts writing as meaningful cultural production in Providence.

Writing Format

Residency authors will write three texts each, addressing three different stages of the Lab artists’ work over the course of their 2024-2025 fellowships: development/design; production/implementation, and presentation to the public of the works. These texts will be published in three stages, contingent on and correlative with the ongoing schedule of the Lab. We envisage the development and publication of these texts as mirroring the iterative and collaborative ethos of the Commemoration Lab.  

 In support of fostering an expansive definition of “arts writing,” each writer will be supported as they explore three distinct formats:  

  • a long-form (4,000-5,000 words), research-driven text, that examines the site, including (but not limited to) its history, publics, and the structure of the Commemoration Lab;
  • an interpretive prose/poetry piece (a collection of poems, illustrations, evocative text etc.) illuminating some facet of the site/work explored in the long-form text; and 
  • a collaborative text that includes the voices of the artists and community members of the site and situates the artists/work in its place and amongst its publics.  

The texts will be hosted on the Providence Commemoration Lab website and printed in a less media-rich format in a commemorative publication to be shared with Lab participants, libraries and archives. Illustrations and multimedia activations of the text are encouraged and supported.

Location and Siting of PCL

Columbus Square is a small park between two busy roads in the Elmwood section of the City. It was previously the home of a controversial Bertholdi Columbus statue, fabricated at the nearby Gorham Manufacturing Company and gifted to the City by local elites at the end of the 19th century.

Roger Williams Park, also known as “the people’s park,” is 102 acres of green space on the City’s southern border with neighboring Cranston. An important part of the area watershed, still recovering from decades of industrial harm, the park has numerous commemorative works scattered throughout its grounds.

Public Street between Broad Street and the industrial waterfront was once a thriving saltmarsh. Walking to the eastern edge of Public Street is a reminder that the tidal shifts and brackish water of the river still host a biologically rich and culturally diverse ecosystem. Click here for information about proposed designs advanced by the Office of Sustainability for the area between Allens Ave. and the Providence River.

The three priority public sites (all are on public property) proposed for Providence Commemoration Lab have been selected because they pose critical questions about the practical and philosophical realities of commemoration in the City. Further, they have already been embraced by various stakeholder communities.

Scope of Work and Pay Structure

Upon award notification and acceptance, the author shall sign a contract with the City and RIHS for the activities outlined below:

  • Participate in regularly scheduled check-ins with the Residency Editor.
  • Attend methodology workshops and two cohort meetings for mutual writing and revision support. 
  • Attend community engagement activities of their particular site, as artists will be immersing themselves with their site’s stakeholder communities to develop and lead arts-based organizing strategies.
  • Engage with Commemoration Lab artists to understand the processes by which they create their place-based works.
  • Participate in an unveiling and dedication ceremony in summer 2025.

Each writer will receive a $10,000 stipend to support the research, writing, and revision process, with an up-front award of $1000 and then $3,000 disbursed with the publication of each of the three works. Publication on the Providence Communication Lab website is contingent upon editor approval. 

Eligibility

Upon award notification and acceptance, the author shall sign a contract with the City and RIHS for the activities outlined below:

  • Participate in regularly scheduled check-ins with the Residency Editor.
  • Attend methodology workshops and two cohort meetings for mutual writing and revision support. 
  • Attend community engagement activities of their particular site, as artists will be immersing themselves with their site’s stakeholder communities to develop and lead arts-based organizing strategies.
  • Engage with Commemoration Lab artists to understand the processes by which they create their place-based works.
  • Participate in an unveiling and dedication ceremony in summer 2025.

Each writer will receive a $10,000 stipend to support the research, writing, and revision process, with an up-front award of $1000 and then $3,000 disbursed with the publication of each of the three works. Publication on the Providence Communication Lab website is contingent upon editor approval. 

Residency Selection Process and Timeline

Applications will be received until 11:59: PM June 7, 2024, when they will be reviewed by a team of three jurors. Residency writers will be notified by June 25th.

Qualified authors may submit their cover letter, resume/CV, and writing samples by 11:59: PM June 7, 2024 to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the subject line “Residency Application.” 

Please attach each file with your name and document as the file name (for example “name coverletter.pdf” or “name sample1.pdf”)

An info session for interested parties will take place at noon on May, 25 2024. To participate send an email with the subject heading “Residency Info Session” to PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com. Questions received by Editor Liz Maynard by noon on May 24, 2024 will be collated in a shared FAQ.

Selection Criteria

Writers will be selected based on the following criteria as evidenced by their submitted materials:

  • Strength of writing practice that engages issues of community, memory, and process.
  • Relationship of the author’s method of engagement to the context of the Program Goals stated above.
  • Writing excellence and innovation, as evidenced by previous work.
  • Proven capacity to, or articulated interest in learning to, work with an editor to complete projects on time.
  • Cultural humility and respect for collaboration; experience working with diverse populations; and demonstrated interest in working with Providence residents to co-create a final work.

To Submit

To apply, email PCLWritingResidency@gmail.com with the subject line “Residency Application” by 11:59 PM, June 7, 2024.

Submission Checklist:

Please attach each file with your name and document as the file name (for example “name coverletter.pdf” or “name sample1.pdf”)

Cover Letter of 1-2 pages:

Please tell us what excites you about the Commemoration Lab and the Writing Residency? How do you see yourself positioned to succeed in the proposed role? If you have a preference, please speak to your interest to work at any of the three PCL sites. Please review the eligibility section and speak to these qualifiers as part of your cover letter.

How do you understand the form and function of writing in cultivating the arts community? What is your experience with and interest in writing in different formats? What are you interested in exploring in your own writing practice? 

CV/Resume and References:  

A resume/CV of no more than 3 (three) pages in length.

Your resume must include three professional/personal references. You should include the references’ names, contact information, and position.

A portfolio of 3 to 5 writing samples:

For each writing sample submitted, the following should be included:

  • Title
  • Year of completion
  • Brief description of text (100 words or less); please include the genre (exhibition review, prose, poem, academic text, news article, etc.) commissioning/publishing entity (if applicable), and state your role in the creation of the artwork if other authors/artists were involved in its creation.

A publication sample is not required for its inclusion in the portfolio. Cumulative texts should not exceed 5000 words. Consider submitting a variety of lengths and formats to demonstrate range.