Why I Don't Apply to Writers Retreats

 Dorland Arts Colony is the only southern California artists-and-writers "colony" with a writers residency program, so it must've been the one I had a very negative experience with in the early 1980's. Since I made an ill-fated attempt to apply, it looks to have changed considerably both in appearance and in requirements--the place has been entirely rebuilt after a fire in 2004, and the application process has gone online. So it may have changed for the better since I was soured on the whole idea, but I remain suspicious about the purpose of any writers' "retreat" or "residence."

In the first year or two after I finished college and was looking for where, when and how to start a career, I saw a list of writers' retreats in a magazine, and one in the San Diego area was, as I recall, the only one located in the western United States. There were some instructions about how to apply for a residency--that was in the days of sending applications through the US mail--and also something about a day the location was open to receive visitors--I don't remember if the exact words were "open house" or "visitors' day" or "orientation" or what.  

Silly me, I thought the day to visit the colony would be something along the line of an orientation, a meet-and-greet, a question-and-answer, a tour of the grounds, a chance to find out more about how the facility was run, what type of writers and writing they might be looking for, what to expect should I make a commitment to spend a portion of my life in residency there. At the very least I thought I'd be able to meet some of the staff and some fellow writers, maybe network, maybe make some connections.

I thought, how many other writers and would-be writers would be willing and able to attend? They'd have to: (1) know about the place, (2) be serious about applying for a residency, prepared to commit the finances and time involved in spending weeks at a remote retreat away from family and whatever their regular source of income might be, and (3) have the time, money, and interest to actually make a one-day trip to the facility. Right? How many people might that be, several hundred, maybe? That'd be a large pool of would-be applicants, but not an unmanageable one. 

On the designated day I drove from Anaheim down to Temecula, and off onto a rural road into the California countryside. Upon arrival at the general location, I found a fairly large and well-organized parking area, and a shuttle was running people up to the colony that was tucked back into the hills. The shuttle was crowded, but it wasn't like a preview of a mob scene.

Then I exited the shuttle, and what I saw resembled a giant festival without any festivities, or a giant amusement park with no amusements, just a giant unorganized crowd. There was no sign, literal or figurative, of any organization or control. Mobs--not small scattered groups of people, veritable mobs--were milling around the rustic buildings, in and out of doors, up and down the dirt footpaths across the hillside, all chattering among themselves, but no sign of anyone in charge of anything. There were no people with name badges or any other indication of any employee presence, no signage, no schedule, no activities, no booths, no information tables, no one meeting or greeting, no one to ask or answer questions, no one handing out informational literature, nothing but this teeming disorganized crowd. In some places some groups of people were sitting and talking among themselves, but they showed no indication of being the kind of group you could introduce yourself to and join in the conversation. 

I looked around in vain for any other singles, or any small friendly group I could fall in with, but found no one. I had to traipse all by my lonesome through the buildings, with no idea of what buildings they were, picking my way carefully up and down the dirt paths. Silly me, I thought I was going to some kind of business event--something to wear my formal business attire for--but I was walking around the rustic rural grounds that were more like hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

I did find one residence cabin, and there I did find one young black woman chattering with some old white dudes. I was able to determine from what I overheard that she had some kind of connection to the place. I tried to ask her some questions, but the only thing I got out of her was, "I live here." 

My talking to the woman went something like this:

"Are you one of the writers here? Is this your cabin?"

"I live here."

"What do you do when you're not writing?"

"I live here."

"What do you do for meals?"

"I live here."

"How did you get here? Did you bring your car?"

By now her tone was irate, "I live here."

Those were the days when typewriters, not computers, were a writer's most important tool, so I tried one last question, "Did you bring your own typewriter?"

"I live here," while her nose was so high in the air it practically scraped the ceiling, and I could tell that she was much more interested in talking to the old white dudes, not some young blonde female.

I climbed back down the hill, got back on the shuttle, and left, wondering where that massive crowd came from--I doubted the vast majority of them were serious writers, or serious about a writing residency. On one hand, I suppose it's possible every writer and would-be writer who knew the place existed travelled from far and wide, and every one of them brought their entire extended families with them. 

However, I suspect the more likely possibility was that the place was overrun with people who had nothing to do with writing, "Hey, look, Martha, it's a writers' retreat! Is this one of those places where those hippies, or commies, or whatever they are, run around naked?"

I still wonder what was the point of having the place open to the public for that day, since it obviously wasn't to provide applicants with any useful information. Someone planned the day enough to arrange for a shuttle to go back and forth to the parking lot, but didn't bother to actually plan anything else. If there were any persons with actual connections to the retreat (beyond that one I-live-here woman), then they must've been lost in the crowd, talking away with their buddies and not actually caring about anything going on around them.

To make sure I tried everything, I did mail in an application (and I'm sure there was a fee I had to pay to apply), likely sending copies of the meager work I'd done for the women's paper at UCLA for my writing samples. I got back a form rejection slip. 

I knew the place had some kind of connection to University of California Riverside, and I suspect the path to a residency led through there, however indirectly. Given what I'd seen of that crowd, and the place, and the lack of any care or concern for any actual dissemination of information about applying for a residency, I had a sneaking suspicion this was a case of, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." The application process and the visitors' day, or "open house" day, or whatever it was, were probably theater for the teaming masses. The people actually selected for residencies were ones that had some kind of "in." I didn't have one, and I still don't have one.

If anyone wants to find out whether anything's changed since then, here's the Dorland website:  https://www.dorlandartscolony.com/home.html