Millay Arts

ABOUT

Founded in 1973 as the Millay Colony for the Arts, Millay Arts occupies Steepletop, the former Austerlitz, New York estate of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, in the hills of Columbia County. Over five decades it has hosted more than 3,000 writers, visual artists, composers, and playwrights, including alumni who have gone on to win Pulitzers, Guggenheims, and MacArthur "genius" grants. The organization's identity is bound up with Millay's own legacy of rural solitude paired with creative community, and it has become one of the more storied multidisciplinary residencies in the Northeast.

Millay Arts runs two tracks: the fully subsidized Core Residency, a two-week to month-long stay covering groceries, chef-prepared communal dinners, and a private studio and bedroom, awarded through a blind juried Submittable application (poetry is one of the eligible disciplines, alongside fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, screenwriting, composing, and visual art); and the partially subsidized Steepletop Residency, which bypasses the jury and runs on a rolling deadline for applicants with outside institutional or private funding. For the Core Residency's April–July 2027 cycle, the standard deadline is October 1 (11:59pm ET) with a $45 application fee, and a late deadline of October 8 with a $65 fee. There is no cash stipend, but room, board, and studio space are provided, and the program emphasizes unstructured time with no expectation of finished work. Deadlines and fees have shifted over the years, so applicants should confirm current cycle dates directly on the site before applying.