Sourwood Forest in Western Amherst County, Virginia inspires through direct experience in nature, fostering curiosity, artistic expression, and wellbeing. We are currently seeking writers for residencies of varying lengths from mid May through late September 2025 (flexible dates and rates, with priority given to long stays). Visual artists who work with natural materials and need little indoor space are also welcome. Interested? For more info and to begin planning your residency, fill out this Google form: Sourwood Forest Application 2025
You’ll share a spacious home on sixty acres of untrailed forest, where the nearest human neighbor is half a mile away. Residents each have a private bedroom, share a bathroom with up to 2 other residents, and have free use of the house’s main kitchen, communal spaces, yard and gardens. For more details, see Frequently Asked Questions about Sourwood Forest.
Here’s how Patricia Wallbertson, a visual artist resident in June of 2024, describes the place:
“The house itself was lovingly built. Smooth trunks of trees made up the support beams of the house, rocks lined a wall with an inbuilt stove, and everything glowed with natural light. The windows looked out onto the garden, and at any given time I could see a vignette of flittering butterflies on a bush, nesting wrens in a flower pot, or wily squirrels trying a bird feeder. At the turn of the day to the evening, more hummingbirds than I personally have ever seen in one place whizzed around the back porch to drink their sugar-water. The architecture of the space seems to encourage remembering that we are a part of the ecosystem we inhabit.”
“I loved being surrounded by so much life with so much to tell. Judy was an excellent guide. She was patient with my many questions and generous with sharing from her reservoirs of knowledge. Her experience in environmental education, scientific study, and creative expression led way to inquisitive/expansive conversations. I learned a lot about the dynamics of the environment: identifying the sounds and tones of critters, how the patterns of flora and fauna and seasons relate to each other, what/how/why the micro-ecosystems within Sourwood and the Pedlar river had changed over time, etc. My ears perk to the territorial chitter of a wren in a way that they hadn’t before” (Patricia Wallbertson, visual artist resident, June 2024, more of her work here).
Here’s what a writer in residence from June 2023 says about Sourwood Forest: “When I first arrived at Sourwood Forest, I was greeted by a particularly friendly wood thrush perched on a nearby fence post. For weeks I had spent my mornings following a thrush’s call near my home without ever spotting its source. But here, in this remote corner of Amherst County, VA, beyond the car horns, advertisements, and fluorescent linings of the city, I was met, immediately, by what I’d been looking for, as if the bird had been nudging me here all along. In the days that followed, during my short stay at Sourwood Forest, this suspicion was confirmed again and again–by the soft silence of the mornings, writing at the window overlooking a quilt of native flowers and shrubs; by the path of white oak, beech, and (yes) sourwood that bent through the understory; by a quirky family of goats, all congregating nearby for their next taste of tree trimmings; and by the birds, over and over again–the tenacious hummers battling at the feeders, that chance encounter with a yellow-breasted chat, the fiery coat of a scarlet tanager. Sourwood Forest not only offered a perfect place to write, to walk, and to witness, it offered me a place to be, to remember how to be. The wood thrush, with its one-bird harmony, knew what I needed after all.” (Grant Kittrell, June 2023)
