July began with a bang up weekend filled with alums who scored lucky spots in our raffle to get out of Dodge. We had a full house! The weather cooperated and the studios were buzzing with making. We love housing writers, artists, composers of all stripes and are so excited about our new alum weekends. Our Millay family grows every year, but we really do love to foster our relationships. Now birdsong is wafting in from the trees, bees are bumbling through the clover in the fields, and July residents are settling in for their stay. Painters are already busy in their studios, a photographer is using our darkroom, and writers are folding laundry after a long journey to get here. With us this month:

Toby Altman, Poet

Eva Nikolova, Visual Artist

Patrick Shaw, Playwright

Allison Spence, Visual Artist

Susan Steinberg, Writer

Sarah Williams, Visual Artist

Later in the month Sarah Dohrmann will come up from NYC to lead an afternoon workshop for area teachers. Sarah comes to us by way of Teachers & Writers Collaborative and has developed a Professional Development program through her many years working as a writer and visiting teacher in the public schools. Want to invigorate your teaching practice? Join us July 27th for her Reflective Writing Strategies for Teachers will give you tips, tools, exercises, and resources to bring back to your classrooms.

Save the date! After you’ve done all your summer traveling come interrogate and document your experiences with travel writer and photographer Colleen Kinder. Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, The Atlantic, and many others. She’s leading Story of a Journey, Tale of a Stranger: Writing of Place August 30th to September 3rd.

.All in a July day at Millay, for your viewing pleasure this mise en scène:…