Yaddo

March 19, 2003 9:22 PM

Yaddo: The Artist's Retreat. "Collectively, artists who have worked at Yaddo have won 55 Pulitzer Prizes, 55 National Book Awards, a Nobel Prize, and countless other honors. Visitors from [John] Cheever's day include Milton Avery, James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Aaron Copland, Philip Guston, Patricia Highsmith, Langston Hughes, Ted Hughes, Alfred Kazin, Ulysses Kay, Jacob Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Katherine Anne Porter, Mario Puzo, Clyfford Still, and Virgil Thomson." A place to go to get your mind off war.
posted by adrober (4 comments total)

Thanks adrober - an interesting link that looks chock full of good things - I am a bit distracted and mind numb with world events tonight, so not doing it full justice, but will surely enjoy exploring it soon - the links to artists' sites will provide some interesting surfing - thanks!
posted by madamjujujive at 10:23 PM on March 19, 2003

I was just reading The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor and there's a number about Yaddo. She spent a year or more there, working on her first novel while uncertain how to deal with her publisher, and she eventually left over some controversy about a Yaddo tenant whose overly long stay there may have had more to do with her political view/connections than her artistry.
posted by namespan at 11:32 PM on March 19, 2003

Did they win before or after being at Yaddo?
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:55 AM on March 20, 2003

I stopped by Yaddo last fall. It's amazingly close to a) the throughway (you get the constant drone of cars going by) and b) Saratoga Springs racetrack. Two things I wouldn't think that would necessarly promote the creative process...
posted by armacy at 8:55 AM on March 20, 2003