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by bthallplz 317 days ago
It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things, but for nowhere near the cost. (The place looks super neat, but I'm not paying that much, don't live near there, and need to report to my employer's office twice a week.)

I wonder if there'll be an aggregator of the blog posts written as post of this cohort (and others, if there's more cohorts).
3 comments
habryka 316 days ago
> It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things, but for nowhere near the cost.

Yep, Bay Area rent and cost of living is a big pain. $1,500 for housing for a month is still below real estate costs on our side, and $2,000 in program fees is barely enough to pay for the staff costs and program supplies. We might barely break even, but my guess is we'll lose a bunch of money on the program (which is fine, we are doing this because it's good for the world, not to make money).

I feel like for a program like this it might make sense for someone to run it outside of one of the highest cost of living places in the world, but it's where we are located, so that's what we have to make work (I do think being in the Bay Area does also attract people and makes it more likely for people to participate, so it's not an obvious call even from first principles).

> I wonder if there'll be an aggregator of the blog posts written as post of this cohort (and others, if there's more cohorts).

We're definitely planning to do something like that! Not sure yet about the exact format, but we'll definitely make it easy to find what everyone is publishing as part of the residency somehow.

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darknavi 316 days ago
> It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things, but for nowhere near the cost.

I am not familiar with blogging or this sphere at all, but it's so funny to me that I was assuming the website said that the program would PAY the bloggers to be there for a month (including housing) and not the other way around.

I assumed this was one of those "We'll let you write a book while riding Amtrak for free" sort of thing. Not sure why I thought that, but it made me laugh after reading your comment.

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munificent 316 days ago
It's because they describe it as a "residency" and not a "retreat". Residencies usually pay the artist/writer to be there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist-in-residence

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habryka 315 days ago
Oh, hmm, I hadn't thought about that association.

I don't think "retreat" is the right choice for a 4 week program, I think "retreat" implies a shorter duration. We played around with "fellowship" but that seemed worse.

Searching around a bit though, it seems like there are lots of other programs with similar naming choices. See for example this: https://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/literary-arts/deep-winte...

Which charges ~$5,600.

Or this: https://iyws.clas.uiowa.edu/2-week-summer-residential-progra...

Which charges $2,500. Both are called "residencies". Seems like it's not that weird for a program called "residency" to charge fees, though I still kind of buy there is some association here. If anyone has better suggestions, I would be pretty interested.

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munificent 315 days ago
> I don't think "retreat" is the right choice for a 4 week program, I think "retreat" implies a shorter duration.

If a name is going to imply the wrong thing, would you rather someone get the wrong signal and think "wait, I thought you were going to pay me but I have to pay you?!" or "oh, I guess it's an even longer vacation"?

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paulcole 317 days ago
> It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things

What’s stopping you besides the unsettling truth that it’s more fun to think that it’d be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things than it is to actually do the same things from afar?

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