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What’s New at Sourwood Forest
I don’t know if I’ll ever need a third bedroom for Sourwood Forest residents, but already I’m enjoying The Bean as a writing space.
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Sourwood Forest Artist Residency 2026
“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.” Patricia Walbertson, artist in residence June 2024 Continue reading
Tangled up in Spring
Here is our entanglement made visible through the design of spiders and a trick of water and light. Here is that web we rarely notice we are in….
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Winter, Spring—just like that
A snowy world patterned by crisp lines of tree shadows: that was this winter, still strong in my mind’s eye, strong in my heart, as I remember January and February in a winter that felt like winters from twenty years ago. Snow on the ground for weeks, several storms dropping ice, snow, sleet again and again. Many mornings putting warm water in the frozen bird baths. Bags and bags of sunflower seed distributed in seven all-too-quickly-emptied feeders. So many birds! Even the snow plow came to our faraway, long gravel road twice this year. Continue reading
Pinecones, Portals, and Poets
No small thing is small, or so it seems to this human found by a pinecone on a warm January day. Continue reading
Fall and Faith
What is it that seems to be held to the center of me and reaching out at the same time, like my heart is attached to the world beyond me– to the birdsong, the dripping wet leaves after the much needed rain, the goats in the barn, the sky that opens and closes as I move among the trees. Faith is an embrace.
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Summer 2025 Writers at Sourwood Forest
“You have all day to work on your projects, uninterrupted time and space to work on what you want to work on, and to be inspired by things. I think it is a very special opportunity.” Catherine Simpson, writer in residence June 2015
“The setting is kind of magical. It’s part of the wonder of the place.” Ann Marie Halstead, writer in residence May 2025
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What matters most?
“What matters most?” is a question I ask myself frequently, as I choose and rearrange priorities for how to spend my time, daily, hour by hour. Even minute by minute. It has taken sixty years for me to recognize this question’s power and necessity in my life. And I’m only just beginning to see how slippery its answers can be. Continue reading
Precious Bugs
The trail through the woods this September morning is bereft of spider artistry. Where are the webs? So I drop my spiderweb stick and notice instead the dappled light, cool dampness in the air, vibrant green moss against the beech tree trunks. I hear a few calls from widely separated birds and the sound in the distance of a few crickets and perhaps a cicada. I try to rise to the challenge of not comparing what is to what used to be. Continue reading
Poppies and Patricia: Sourwood Forest, June 2024
Patricia’s stay here made me hopeful for the future. It was encouraging to meet a young person set on bringing positive change to the world by way of how she lives as an artist, what she might create, as well as through the interactions and serendipity that will likely inform her creative process. Continue reading