During the summer and winter residencies, you'll immerse yourself in the writer's life, meeting with peers and nationally known writers, giving and listening to readings, participating in critiques, and writing in a setting that is steeped in beauty and history.
The first three days of the ten-day mid-June summer residency are spent on the SNHU campus in Manchester. During that time students meet the faculty, attend panels and workshops led by members of the advisory board, hear readings by graduating students, and attend their graduation ceremony.
The balance of the residency is spent at the Mountain View Grand Resort. Students will attend craft workshops and readings by faculty members, enjoy a workshop and later a reading by the residency's visiting writer, participate in constructive critiques of their peers' work, applaud open-mic readings by their peers, take part in a number of social activities, and immerse themselves in the power and potential of the written word.
The five-day winter residency, which takes place in early January, is held entirely at the Mountain View Grand. Advisory board members are not present for this event, but otherwise it offers the same range of activities—and depth of immersion—as the summer residency.
Residency Dates
2013 Summer Residency: June 12 - June 22
2014 Winter Residency: January 3 - January 8
2014 Summer Residency: June 11 - June 21
2015 Winter Residency: January 6 - January 11
The Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa
What better place to focus on your writing than a 19th-century resort steeped in literary tradition and nestled in the storied White Mountains of New Hampshire?
SNHU's two annual residencies at the Mountain View Grand Resort in Whitefield offer the perfect setting for writing and reflection. Cozy nooks, fireplace-lit libraries, and other trappings of old New England elegance set the stage for writing, readings with visiting writers and peers, and mentor meetings.
Founded in 1865, the Mountain View justifies its name with its 360-degree panorama and 1,700 acres of preserved land. The resort has grown and been refurbished over the decades to become one of the most favored destinations in New Hampshire.
And the Mountain View has a rich literary, artistic, and political history. Charles Dickens spent several days at the resort during an American tour to give his famous one-man performance of scenes from his novels—gaslights overhead, stage backlit with a muffled screen, windows open to moonlight and mountain breezes. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, and Norman Rockwell are present on old guest registers, as are actors Betty Grable, Bette Davis, and the Marx brothers; and American presidents Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower.
For years, local lore had it that the resort was the inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shining." That has since been credited to the Stanley Hotel in Colorado, but the legend lives on with a photograph of the book's famous twins that hangs in the lobby and that also appeared in the movie. Local lore also has it that the Mountain View boasts its own set of ghosts.
The resort offers many comfortable, intimate meeting spaces for conferences, workshops, lectures, and readings. In the summer guests can find golf, tennis, hiking, and fishing right outside its doors. In the winter there is ice-skating by day or night, or guests can travel the resort's groomed trails on snowshoes or cross-country skis. Other amenities include indoor and outdoor pools, a well-equipped Spa & Wellness Center, and a 17-seat movie theater.
The Mountain View is also a working farm, which is open to hotel guests. The farm provides the hotel's eggs and vegetables, and its unique Mountain View Farm Blend of wool and yarn.
There is direct access to the resort up Interstate 93 from the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.