I have just started reading Bleaker House by Nell Stevens and the basic premise for the book has my mind spinning in the most wonderful ways. The book, a memoir, is about the months Stevens spent living on a remote and desolate island in the Falklands. She was there to remove herself from the distractions that she felt made it difficult for her to write and to embrace the solitude she though necessary for writers.
And it was all funded by her MFA program:
A generous donor has made it possible for us to send most of our students abroad after they complete their degree requirements. Global Fellows in Fiction may go to any country and do there what they wish, for a typical stay of up to three months. The Global Fellowship adventure is not only intended to help Boston University’s MFA candidates grow as writers, but also to widen eyes, minds, and hearts – from which better writing may eventually flow.
This is a staggering and completely wonderful use of university funds. And, on a cold Sunday afternoon, I have found a lovely way to pass the time: thinking of the destinations I would choose if I were in such a program.
Being me, I’d probably want to roam about Central Europe – there is nothing I enjoy more than insurmountable language barriers and echoes of the Hapsburg Empire. I got a little taste of such a trip this year but the effect was sadly diluted by too much time in Italy. I would go back in a heartbeat to do it right.
My second favourite empire, the Ottoman Empire, is also alluring: a trip that somehow encompasses Turkey and the Balkans with a possible stop in North Africa sounds pretty perfect (although subject to political and military turmoil, in which case scrap everything else and stay on a beach in Croatia, I suppose). And there are always possibilities for writers in such politically fraught, historically rich regions.
Where would you dream of going on such an adventure?
The Captive Reader 
Love this idea! Yorkshire, Scotland, and the west of Ireland, please.And maybe finish up in Paris, just for a change of pace.
All sound like ideal destinations to me!
I am in the library wait list for this book. Don’t know when I will get to it but I like the premise of it. I would like to be tucked into a fully stocked cabin with a big fireplace in the winter time in Canada somewhere. On a lake I think. Dream on.
That sounds very cosy, even to a snow-hating Canadian like me!
There’s a cabin in Gulmarg in Kashmir. It has wood stoves in sitting room and bedroom, someone to make up the fire and bring food and top up the samovar, a huge writing desk where Nehru loved to work, and a view out over the forest to the great hills. In the summer the valley is full of tourists but in winter even the skiers are few and far between and there’s just you and the snows.
Though actually I’m sitting at a huge table looking out at birds and trees and sparkling frost and there’s a fire in the wood stove and a husband who has just brought me more coffee but is working away in his own corner on his own book and maybe if I actually just started writing too …….
Ooo, a fantasy with staff to take care of you – I like it!
I love it that you have a “second favourite empire”, a bit like Shakespeare with his second favourite bed (famously bequeathed to his wife).
Absolutely. It’s important to be prepared for all situations; when someone one day demands I list my favourite empires I shall be perfectly ready for them and shall remain entirely calm as I contrast the merits of Ottomans, Hapsburgs, Mughals, etc.