Write A House Giving Away Second House to Writing Resident

Posted on April 29, 2015

If you're a writer looking for a writing residency in the Detroit area, you might want to look into this opportunity. Due to its massive financial problems, the city of Detroit has many empty houses. The nonprofit group Write A House has been buying them out of foreclosure, fixing them up and giving three of them away as part of a Writing Residency.

Write a House aims to help revitalize the arts in various neighborhoods. The residency asks that the writer include the community in some way, perhaps by holding discussions or poetry readings in the neighborhood, hosting a salon, writing a blog, or teaching children. The residency includes a house which has been refurbished by the nonprofit. After two years, the writer will be given the deed and may stay or resell the house.

Applicants may write fiction, nonfiction or poetry. The first residency went to poet and historian named Casey Rocheteau last fall. The second home is in a neighborhood they call Banglatown. The nonprofit describes says the neighborhood is culturally mixed, with a growing Bangladeshi population, an established African-American population and an older Polish population. It is the home of the visual arts nonprofit Power House Productions.

We think it's a fascinating and bold approach to using the arts to help rejuvenate Detroit.