Grief, Writing Colonies and Summer Blockbusters

Yaddo itself was born from grief, that great leveler. The colony became a playground for creative minds because Katrina Trask, the matriarch of the mansion and its well-maintained grounds, lost all of her children in infancy or childhood and she needed something to do with her hands, her mind, her heart. She created a place where you can sit in your room and write while listening to someone composing music in the next room. Where you can go for days without speaking to anyone but yourself and the characters that populate your imagination. Where people do your laundry and drive you into town in a little van. Where people bring you a heater if your hands are cold, or a fan if your room is too hot. Where they will adjust the condiments on your sandwich to your liking and where there is always a nice bottle of wine at dinner. A training in silence and concentration, Buddhist-like and private, but also communal in the sense that you never lose sight of all the other people beavering away at their beloved projects in all of the houses and outbuildings. Super-privileged prisoners of artistic ambition.