SPACE on Ryder Farm and Lilly Awards Foundation Open Family Residency Program Submissions

Submissions are now being accepted for SPACE on Ryder Farm and The Lilly Awards Foundation's Family Residency program, now in its second year. The weeklong fully subsidized residency is extended to writers and their kids ages 6-13 at SPACE on Ryder Farm in Brewster, NY. The program aims to offer working parents an opportunity to participate in a retreat that would otherwise be financially or logistically impossible. 2016 residency dates are August 9-15.

The Family Residency program offers both its participants and their children housing in SPACE's 18th-century farmhouse, as well as three farm fresh meals each day. Parents are provided structured time to write and create, while kids participate in nature-focused arts programming under the guidance and expertise of theater educator Megan Cramer.

Says Executive Director and Founder of SPACE, Emily Simoness: "The goal of the residency is to help participants balance career and family and to allow artists with children to remain productive members of the artistic community."

2015 participants included Brooke Berman, Nina Hellman, Julia Jordan, Laura Marks, Pia Scala-Zankel, Stefanie Zadravec, and their children.

Led by Simoness, SPACE on Ryder Farm provides artists with the opportunity to create away from the stress and noise of everyday life and work in the company of other artists in a bucolic and inspirational setting. Ryder Farm has been in the Ryder family since 1795 and was at the cutting-edge of America's green movement, becoming one of the first farms in the country to go organic in the 1970s. All of SPACE's programming is centered around residents gathering together for three farm-fresh meals a day.

Applications for the Family Residency program are available online at www.spaceonryderfarm.org.