Call for Entries: 2024 Residency Program 

If you have landed on this page directly without visiting our website first, we strongly encourage you to read more about our residency program, the application guidelines, and residency FAQs before beginning your application.

Each year, the Saltonstall Foundation awards free, stipend-supported, accessible residencies to artists and writers who are residents of New York State and Indian Nations therein. We support artists and writers working in the following disciplines: 

• Poetry
• Fiction & Creative Nonfiction
• Photography & Filmmaking
• Painting | Sculpture | Visual Arts

ACCESSIBILITY: Our wheelchair-friendly accessible addition includes a private accessible living space with a roll-in shower, a private accessible studio (for a visual artist or writer), a shared accessible kitchen and dining area, accessible laundry facilities, and an adjoining private one-bedroom suite for a personal care assistant if needed.

To all applicants: At the end of each application, we ask a few demographic questions. These questions are optional, although we would be grateful for your participation. In our ongoing efforts to be more inclusive, equitable, and accessible, we want to empower our juries to consider the applicants' historical representation and recommend a roster of writers and artists that capture the diversity of the field. While applicants will remain anonymous throughout the jurying process, we do share some geographic and demographic information with our juries as the rounds progress.

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Saltonstall is located eight miles east of Ithaca, New York on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ' Nation (generally known as the Cayuga Nation), one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

A Saltonstall residency is a small community. We strive to provide a quiet, inviting, respectful, and nurturing community for creative individuals looking for uninterrupted time to focus on their craft.

There are just five individuals in residence at a time: one poet, one fiction or creative nonfiction writer, one photographer or filmmaker, and two visual artists. Each group of five arrives and departs at the same time.

We believe in and value a diverse community of creative individuals. To that end, we hope that all artists and writers feel welcome to apply for a residency, regardless of one’s level of education, experience, race, ethnicity, age, sex, religious belief, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or national origin.

There is no cost to attend Saltonstall and no application fee associated with this application. Additionally, to help offset travel to Ithaca and other personal expenses, we offer stipends of $100/week to everyone who attends. Additional stipend support (up to $1,000) will be offered based on financial need and the median household income of an applicant's County. Artist- and writer-parents will each receive a $500 stipend.   

All applicants must be at least twenty-one (21) years of age and must be residents of New York State or Indian Nations therein ** (all counties). Residencies are for individual artists and writers. We are unable to accommodate groups or pairs of people working together. Specific residency dates are inclusive. It is expected that those selected for a residency live at Saltonstall for the duration of the residency period and -- during the 2 - 4-week residencies -- participate in our Open House events.  

Dates for our 2024 residencies are as follows

Our fifth annual residencies for artist/writer parents:

• Thursday - Thursday, May 30 - June 6 

Please note: this residency is strictly for artist/writer parents who have at least one dependent child (under 18) at home. Since the residency is designed to be a period of solitude and focus for artists and writers, we ask that children and other family members remain home.

Our four-week residencies: 

• Monday - Monday, June 10 – July 8
• Monday - Monday, July 15 – August 12

One (of two) two-week residency: 

• Wednesday - Wednesday, August 14 - 28

Our three-week residency:

• Monday - Monday, September 9 – September 30

Our second two-week residency:

• Monday - Monday, October 7 - 21
• October 2 – 16

Our one-week residency:

• Thursday - Thursday, October 24 - 31

Applicants may apply for either our residency for parents or the 3- or 4-week residencies or the 1- or 2-week residencies (not a combination). For those applying for the longer residencies, you will be given an opportunity to rank your choice of dates within the application. 

All applicants (including those applying for the residency for parents) may apply in more than one artistic or literary category, however a complete and separate application for each category is required.

Note: for our two-, three-, and four-week sessions, artists and  writers will be expected to participate in an open house at the end of  the residency.

ALUMNI: Saltonstall alumni who were attended a residency prior to 2022 are welcome to reapply. Work samples must be different than the work for which an alum was previously awarded the residency.  Applicants who were designated alternates should also submit different work samples.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 11:59 pm on Sunday, January 7, 2024

- We convene a different and diverse jury for each discipline. Jurors serve anonymously and change each year. 

- Your application is considered on the merit of your work sample and your artist's and writer's statement. 

- Your work and statement are presented anonymously to the jury. 

- All applicants are notified on or before Friday, April 5, 2024.

- For accessibility accommodations regarding our application form, please email lesley@saltonstall.org

Please note: Since our jurying process is anonymous, it is very important that you do not identify yourself within your statement or work samples. Do not include information such as your name or your age.

- Do not credential yourself. For example, your writer's or artist's statement should not mention where or when you went to school or where you've been published, exhibited, etc. Simply talk about the work that the jury is reviewing.

 
If there are errors, you will not have an opportunity to fix them, and your application will be disqualified. We don't want that to happen!

Please carefully review the instructions for the discipline in which you are applying before you begin the application process. Good luck! 

** To be eligible for a Saltonstall residency, you must be a resident of New York State or an Indian Nation therein.

What does this mean? Simply put, you must be currently living full time in the State of New York. If you are a resident of New York State, you generally have some combination of the following:

• a New York State voter registration card
• a New York State driver’s license
• proof of a lease or mortgage for real property in New York State
• utility bills for your New York State place of residence
• New York State income tax returns
• New York State bank accounts

We apologize that we cannot accept your application if you are currently living elsewhere and plan to move back to New York in time for the residency. We will be happy to receive your application in the following year once you are a full-time New York State resident.

Finally:  

Please take a moment and reflect on whether or not you would accept a residency if selected. (Because it might happen!) Our Call for Entries —  from initial announcement to jurying to selection — takes a significant amount of time, financial resources, and human resources. We hope you’ll apply with intention and be ready to say “yes!” if offered a residency.