MacDowell

MacDowell, founded in 1907 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, by composer Edward MacDowell and pianist Marian MacDowell, is the oldest artist residency in the United States and still its reference point: a studio in the woods, lunch delivered in a basket, dinner with composers and filmmakers and poets. James Baldwin worked on three books there; Copland wrote Appalachian Spring; Leonard Bernstein, Alice Walker, and Ta-Nehisi Coates all cycled through.

There is no residency fee — MacDowell abolished even the application fee in recent years — and need-based travel and stipend support is available. Poets apply with a work sample to one of three annual deadlines; average stays run three to five weeks.