Laura McGinley is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College in 2006. Her work is forthcoming in On the Page, and she writes a weekly column about consumerism for the web magazine Lostwriters.net. Earlier in 2006 she was awarded a grant to help subsidize travel to Chile. She also taught a creative writing workshop for fourth graders in Mt. Kisco, New York.
“During my residency I completed the first draft of my first novel, Paradise Silks, and started to revise it as well. I also wrote drafts of two short stories, which came directly out of my experiences here, and a poem or two – just for fun. In all, I wrote more than 150 pages. Oysterville itself is such a wonderful place to work – I felt so relaxed, peaceful, and productive. The other residents were great, and I really appreciated the mix of genres, medium, and career status. As an emerging writer, it was a great opportunity for me to meet more established and experienced writers. The community was so welcoming to us, and it was such a pleasure to learn about the history and ecology of the area. Having an environmental writer who could uncover some of the issues was wonderful.”
Excerpted from Laura’s article about Oysterville on Lostwriters.net during June 2006:
“I am spending a month in Washington State, on the top end of a narrow peninsula, in a town with a permanent population of 14. I am here under the aegis of the Espy Foundation, and my raison d’étre, more or less, is to write, but I also do other things, like walk to the bay, walk to the ocean, go clamming, look for animals, and think about flying a kite. When I arrived here in Oysterville I was amazed how immediately and totally I relaxed. It’s true that I have no responsibilities here, let’s see, there’s writing and feeding myself, plus the barest minimum of personal hygiene...”
