
Residency
Our residencies are everything you never imagined grad school could be.
We don't learn in classrooms, we learn in ballrooms.
We don't stay in dorms, we stay at a resort.
We don't have meals in a cafeteria, we have them in the olive grove.
We understand that you do your best work when you have a chance to breathe and enjoy life, so why shouldn't school feel like a vacation?
Learn from award-winning faculty at five 10-day, in-person writing residencies at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort near sunny Palm Springs, California.
Hear From Recent Students
So what IS residency?
While the majority of your class time takes place online from the comfort of your own home, residency is a twice yearly escape into a beautiful, sunny paradise. For ten days in June and ten days in December, you are immersed in your writing community (and sometimes the resort pool), surrounded by peers and mentors, industry professionals, and the best of the best from the wider writing world.
Each day is broken into lectures, workshop, grad lectures, and evening programming.
Lectures
Those professionals and best of the best come in from all corners of the industry and country to teach you everything they know about writing, publishing, producing, and thriving as a writer. With up to three lectures running simultaneously and many rounds throughout the day, you can build your schedule to hit every topic that fits your personal journey. You'll also have the chance to meet with them one-on-one to pick their brain and start to get your name out there, build your network!
Workshop
In workshop you meet with your small group of classmates and professor, the ones you've only known as names online until now, and have the opportunity to read and discuss each other's writing, gaining a wealth of valuable feedback from your peers and getting a sneak peak into their upcoming best-sellers and blockbusters.
Grad Lectures
The lectures aren't all from faculty and guest faculty. The graduating students each give a lecture during their final residency on a topic of their choosing relevant to what they've spent the past two years reading and writing. Maybe it's a lecture on retelling fairy tales, maybe it's the use of subtext in dialogue, maybe it's how to develop a character based on their drink of choice. The joy is in getting to learn something new while seeing how incredible your classmates are at what they do.
Evening Programming
After dinner we meet back up for book launches, author interviews, film screenings, panel discussions, basically anything you can enjoy over a glass of wine before heading out to the firepits for the evening!
Make Industry Connections
We know writing can be a solitary activity, but getting that writing out into the world is a team effort. We'll make sure you leave our program with a full network ready to help launch your literary, screen, or stage career.
You’ll not only meet one-on-one with some of the best writers, agents, editors, producers, and showrunners in the business, but you’ll also have your work read by them at your final residency.
Past guests include editors from every major New York publishing house; Academy Award- and Emmy Award-winning writers, producers and showrunners; plus studio executives from Amazon, Netflix, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, and some of the top indie voices in the business.
Escape to the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort
Our students deserve a residency experience that sounds too good to be true, so we've teamed up with the amazing staff at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort to make sure you have something to tell the New York Times about when you hit it big.
The resort is located in Indian Wells, in the heart of the Coachella Valley, near shopping, dining, entertainment, hiking, and everything else your heart desires.
It has pools, bocce ball, fire pits that wind through a beautiful olive grove, and the kind of vibes that will keep you coming back to visit long after graduation.
Breakfast each morning and a full lunch buffet each afternoon are both included. You will receive generous discounts on food, amenities, and services across the property. And your resort stay is included in your tuition and fees.
General Residency Information
Location:
Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort
45000 Indian Wells Lane
Indian Wells, CA 92210
442-305-4500
Nearby Airports:
- Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) 15 miles with a transfer time of about 20 minutes.
- Ontario International Airport (ONT) 85 miles with a transfer time of about 1 hour, 20 minutes.
- Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) 140 miles with a transfer time of about 2.5 hours, provided there's no traffic...and well, that's never the case.
General Information:
- Check-in at the Tommy Bahama Miramonte is at 3 p.m. Check-out is at noon.
- All students receive their own room. There is NO double-occupancy option.
- Discounts and special menus will be available.
- Breakfast and lunch are provided.
- Free snacks and coffee provided all day!
Residency FAQ
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When are the residencies?
The in-person residencies begin on the first Friday in June and the first Friday in December. They last 10 days. You must attend all five residencies.
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Do I have to go to everything?
No. It would be impossible, as you’ll see. There will be approximately 35 faculty or guest lectures/seminars offered, plus nightly panels/discussions, not all of which are going to be of interest to you, depending upon your genre of choice, expertise, and level of complete exhaustion. In essence, the lectures and readings make up the contact hours of your literature component in both your major and cross-genre, so, to be technical, you should attend at least 10 of them. We’d like you to attend all of them that you find compelling, since, well, you’re paying for them and there will be something to be gained from each of them. But you’re adults. We trust we’ll see you at least 10 different times. All students must attend orientation and new students are required to attend new student orientation.
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Okay, but what do I absolutely have to go to? Specifically
Your genre workshops and your cross-genre workshops. 10 lectures/seminar
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What is there to eat?
Breakfast and lunch are provided. There will be free coffee and snacks in our office each day. There are several dining choices at the resort for dinner including room service, the main restaurant, and the bar, which provides bar food faire. Menus have been provided for you in your welcome packet. Remember: all food and beverage you purchase at the hotel will be given a discount. In addition, there are several restaurants within driving distance from the hotel. You will be provided with a list of restaurants that are nearby that are affordable for dinner. Please note: if you have a spouse/friend/guest stay with you and you’d like them to eat with you, you will be charged a per-day fee that will be charged to your room.
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Do I need to bring my computer?
We consider the residency a time to learn, not a time to write, so there won’t be any assignments per se apart from exercises in class. We will have computers and printers in the office, but only a few, so if you wish to stay connected to your email, a laptop is not a bad idea. There is free Wi-Fi throughout the hotel. Bring a book to read by the pool.
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What do I need to bring?
Clothes. It will be hot during the day. Temperatures in the 90s are normal and sometimes it gets up into the 100s. The evenings are also warm. Your classrooms are usually quite cool. The fanciest restaurants in the desert let people in with shorts and T-shirts in June, so dress as you wish. People tend to dress up for graduation.
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How much is parking?
Self-parking is free.
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What will my room be like?
All the rooms are exceptionally nice. If you haven’t looked yet, take a gander at the Tommy Bahama Miranonte Resort website. If, however, you arrive at the hotel and find that your room is not to your liking, the hotel is excellent about changing rooms. If there’s a persistent problem, please let us know, and we’ll make sure you’re taken care of.
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Do I need a rental car?
No. Plenty of your classmates will be driving in from Southern California and will be happy to drive you places. Really. We promise. You’ll all be getting along like one big happy family. Plus, if you tend towards the antisocial, the hotel is walking distance to restaurants and entertainment.
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Will I be able to buy books?
Yes. We’ll have a bookseller on-site from Sunday through Friday.
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What if I need…
There will be a staff member in the office every day during the residency who can help you with whatever your problems might be.
Recent & Upcoming Residency Faculty
- Luis Alfaro
- Kendra Atleework
- Alexandra Barreto
- Matt Bell
- Aimee Bender
- Francesca Lia Block
- Sara Borjas
- Sheila Callaghan
- Cecil Castellucci
- Steph Cha
- Chiwan Choi
- Steve Conrad
- Jalysa Conway
- Chad Gomez Creasey
- Bryan Davidson
- Natashia Deón
- Tyler Dilts
- Diana Marie Delgado
- Maggie Downs
- Gina Frangello
- Edgar Gomez
- Don Handfield
- Rachel Howzell Hall
- Liska Jacobs
- Dana Johnson
- Stephen Graham Jones
- Shawna Kenney
- Dinah Lenney
- Attica Locke
- Tembi Locke
- Roberto Lovato
- Natasha Marin
- Karen McCullah
- Bill Mechanic
- Jacqueline McKinley
- Susan Scarf Merrell
- Robert Mitas
- Joshua Mohr
- Miguel Murphy
- Isaiah Mustafa
- Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Mallory O' Meara
- Heather Scott Partington
- Victoria Patterson
- Joy Priest
- Mary Robertson
- Hugh Ryan
- Mark Sarvas
- Andrea Seigel
- Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
- Kevin Smokler
- Mike Sonksen
- Rider Strong
- Michael Torres
- Paul Tremblay
- Andy Weir