Reader in Residence
The Reader in Residence serves a month-long tenure in which they simply read—not aloud, but to themself—at the bookshop. In this setting, the reader hones their attention while making literary engagement visible and relevant. They receive a stipend for sustenance and books.
Rooted in both literary theory and over a decade of advocacy, the Reader in Residence program acts on the understanding that the private imagination of reading is a public good. Learn more about the residents and philosophy below.
“Perelandra’s reader-in-residence combines the solitude of the original residency tradition with the community engagement of contemporary ones, into a position that’s physically out in public, but mentally tucked away in a good book.”
— The Colorado Sun
READERS
Matt House, Dallen Simske, Sarah VanVlerah, Noah Larson, Dany Batchelor, Jeff Icenhower, Mary Thomas, Shawn Bowman, Steve Shafer, Ricki Ginsberg, Sam Cranshaw, Matthew Schlief, Kristy Beachy-Quick, Kristy Leushen, Danielle Parker, Matt Wood, Frankie Rollins, Callahan Woodbery, Brandi Thomas, Jeff Chelf, Elaine Wall, Seth Braverman, Kayla Redd, John Newman, Tobias Bank, Kathleen Willard, Lucia Hall, Erica Reid, Rico Lighthouse, Julia Goolsby, John Flynn, Robin Walter, Jason Hardung
Reading is art.
Readers play an integral role in the creative process by which literature makes meaning. The practicing reader, no less than the writer, models an imaginative power that connects human beings across time and space. But 21st century readers face both new and familiar challenges to their practice, from access to literary materials to the more recent hegemony of distracting digital infrastructures. For many people, the idea of regular reading is unattainable.
Enter the Reader in Residence. Like other artist residencies, it affords individuals the resources to practice their craft; unlike other artists-in-residence, the Reader is not expected to produce anything but their own attentive presence. By foregrounding the simple act of reading rather than what a given individual “gets out of it,” the Reader in Residence manifests literary engagement instead of value judgment. This is a revolutionary democratic posture in increasingly undemocratic times.
REQUIRED READING
In Defense of Literacy
Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony
The Death of the Author
Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text
Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World
Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey
Notes for Young Writers
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Eating Poetry
Mark Strand, Selected Poems
The Experiment
C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism
Mission
To empower undistracted engagement with diverse literatures; to nourish literary imagination, empathy and reflexivity; to keep literary practice visible & viable in the digital age.
Vision
Communities bonded by individuality, openness, and imagination.