Author offers seaside cottage to working writers for free retreats

On the wall of a Ramsgate house owned by the Booker winner Bernardine Evaristo hangs a large-scale cover of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. It might just as well read "A Cottage of One's Own", as that is precisely what the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) president is offering.

- Ella Creamer

As part of a joint initiative with the Royal Society of Literature announced this week, the author is to give 10 writers each year the opportunity for a free month-long stay in her seaside residence.

"I bought this cottage as my pension, and I decided that I could put it to use as a writer's retreat," Evaristo said. The choice was in part motivated by her own experience: "For many years I didn't have my own home, I led a very peripatetic lifestyle, and I didn't earn much money from my writing."

The new RSL Scriptorium awards will give priority to writers on low incomes and those who do not have a dedicated writing space.

Writers will have exclusive use of the property and won't be allowed guests. The cottage, which has been set up to minimise distractions, is "very peaceful", said Evaristo.