Residents' Experiences
Richard Powers, Writer - Marfa, Spring 2005
“There’s something about the entire configuration--the spare Chihuahuan desert, the air of the Marfa Plateau, the openness of the town, the intensity of the surrounding mountains, the beautiful design of the new house--that makes it extraordinarily conducive to clarity and verbal focus.”
Bio and Cross Links
Charles Bowden, Writer - Marfa, Spring 2001
“I wrote [A Shadow in the City] in Marfa, Texas, in a house loaned to me by a foundation as part of their writers’ program. This is the second book I have written in that house thanks to the kindness of the outfit. So I would like to thank the folks at the Lannan Foundation. And issue an apology to the town of Marfa for once again being a hermit in their midst and remaining largely ignorant of their fine community. It seems when one is blessed with the loan of a Lannan house, one enters and hardly ever leaves the walls again. I did see things out my window that make me wish this were not my fate. The Davis Mountains and Big Bend region of Texas are good earth. Well, better than good.”
Bio and Cross Links
William L. Fox, Poet and Writer - Marfa, Fall 2002
“The Marfa residencies offer not only the quiet, even the solitude, that writers expect in such situations, but also the availability of a modest but convivial and sophisticated cultural environment. This is juxtaposed with one of the most intense natural settings in the United States and exceptional residential amenities. The working environment, therefore, is uniquely what one makes of it and the enticements to work compelling.”
Bio and Cross Links
Marilyn Chin, Poet - Marfa, Winter 2003
“The breathtaking, expansive desert landscape cleared my brain of excess baggage; and the gift of time gave me the freedom to not only write but to reassess my life. The night sky of Marfa is so huge that one can’t help but to transgress the borders of one’s own limited imagination. I believe that I wrote some of my best work here.”
Bio and Cross Links
Monique Truong, Writer - Marfa, Fall 2001
“A writing residency is always a gift of time. The Lannan Residency, though, provided much more than that—solitude in the best sense of the word, the West Texas sky painted fresh each day, and the Chihuahua desert, a landscape that changes every time you blink.”
Bio and Cross Links
Le Thi Diem Thuy, Poet - Marfa, Summer 2001
“In Marfa, I was able to enter deeply into the world of my work which inevitably returned me to the world of my life. As I worked, everyone I lost this year made their way to me in Marfa.. This was significant, as so much of my work is concerned with the presence of the dead in the lives of the living.”
Bio and Cross Links
Dana Levin, Poet - Marfa, Spring 2001
“I arrived with a mess, and left with a book.”
Bio and Cross Links
Caryl Phillips, Writer - Marfa, Winter 2001
“An almost idyllic retreat in a sumptuous landscape. A perfect place to both work hard and recharge the worn-out urban batteries.”
Bio and Cross Links
Judy Tuwaletstiwa, Artist and Writer - Marfa, Fall 2000
“What a gift: a light-filled, beautiful house, a welcoming town, a landscape that invites the spirit to expand, uninterrupted time to float in the waters of the unconscious, meaningful exchanges with other writers and artists. Nurtured in the generosity of the Lannan Residency, I began my book, Making Breath Visible.”
Bio and Cross Links
David Foster Wallace, Writer - Marfa, Summer 2000
“The whole trans-Pecos is haunted. Some of this is the high desert, where nothing has a shadow and stormclouds seem just out of reach. Some of it is the quiet, which is so profound it becomes its own hum. It is country that wants nothing from you, where it becomes impossible to take yourself seriously. A fruitful state to be in, work-wise, usually.”
Bio and Cross Links