The Residency

In 2024, Hawthornden Foundation launched a new site in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn and non-residential writers’ residency sessions began in 2025. Hawthornden Brooklyn supports established and emerging creative writers of many kinds – poets, novelists, biographers, short-story writers, playwrights, scriptwriters, essayists, creative nonfiction writers, and translators. During the six-week residency, Hawthornden provides writing space, a stipend, meals, and time to focus on writing projects. Residents have an opportunity to connect with other writers, benefit from peer-supported activities, and participate in valuable and collaborative shared experiences.

The House

Hawthornden Brooklyn is located in Ditmas Park, within the Beverly Square West neighborhood, an area bustling with writers, bookstores, and a vibrant literary community. The house is equipped with seven private writing studios, two of which are located on the ground floor and designed to be wheelchair-accessible; a library; kitchen; dining room; living room; outdoor space including a front and back porch and small, sustainably planted garden; and a ramp.

The Routine

In order to offer writers the best environment in which to do their work, our expectation is that during the day, silence will generally be maintained in the house. Writers are expected to come in Monday through Friday, on their own schedule. The house will be accessible seven days a week, from 9AM to 11PM on weekdays, and 9AM to 7PM on weekends. Lunch and dinner will be provided, with two shared group meals a week.

Each participating writer will be offered a stipend of $5,000 to help defray the costs that attending the residency may entail. Hawthornden Foundation does not provide any direct assistance arranging travel or housing accommodations, nor any funding in addition to the stipend. Please take all of this into account when evaluating your participation in the residency. 

Accessibility

Our Hawthornden Brooklyn site is wheelchair accessible, equipped with a ramp, two small wheelchair-accessible writers' studios on the first floor, and a first floor restroom that is also wheelchair-accessible. Additionally, we encourage writers with other physical, sensory, mental health or cognitive disabilities and chronic illnesses to apply. In our online application form, you will be asked to outline any accessibility requirements you may have, including, but not limited to wheelchair access. We will meet all requests for accessibility accommodations to the best of our ability, but cannot guarantee we will be able to fulfill every request.

Elegibility

If you have been a Hawthornden Writer in the past, you are eligible for any other Hawthornden site after a one-year hiatus. After a hiatus of five years, you will be eligible to return to the site where you have already been a Writer.

Application Process

Writers-in-Residence will be selected through an online application process, followed by jury selection from among those who have applied.

Translations of Writing Samples

Applications from writers working in languages other than English are required to include English translations of their work sample as well as the text in the original language. Such applicants should be reasonably fluent in spoken English in order to participate in the life of the residency.

Beginning in 2024, any applicant who writes in a language other than English may ask for their writing sample to be translated into English for the purposes of their application. This is a service provided by Hawthornden Foundation through the literary organization Words Without Borders. (Please note that in some cases, Words Without Borders may not be able to secure a translator working in the applicant’s language.) Please also note that while the applicant will have a chance to review the translation before submitting it to Hawthornden, they will not have the opportunity to correspond with the translator.

Should you choose to take advantage of this translation service, you will be asked to sign an agreement with WWB that commits you to providing the proper translation credit.

Other Programming

Hawthornden Brooklyn will also offer summer programming for public school teachers who are writers, and public school students, along with public programming for the wider community of writers.

For more information on our Summer 2025 Programs visit Young Writers’ Workshop and Writing Residency for Teachers

2026 Session Dates

Please note, session dates are provisional and may vary. Please refer to this page for the most accurate session information. Should dates change, we will continue to update them here.

Hawthornden Brooklyn

• Session I: Monday, 9 February – Friday, 20 March

• Session II: Monday, 30 March – Friday, 8 May

• Session III: Monday, 18 May – Friday, 26 June

• Monday July 6 – Friday September 4 (Young Writers’ Workshop and Writing Residency for Teachers)

• Session IV: Monday, 14 September – Friday, 23 October

• Session V: Monday, 2 November – Friday, 11 December