Chatham University’s MFA program has launched an exciting new partnership with one of the world’s most famous and photogenic houses: Fallingwater. In June, nine current MFA students and five community participants traveled just an hour outside of Pittsburgh to spend five days writing at the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece and UNESCO World Heritage site during the inaugural Fallingwater Residency in Nature and Place-Based Writing.
Program director and professor of creative writing Sheila Squillante says she created this special course offering to underscore the program’s traditional emphasis on nature and place-based writing. “Our MFA program was built to pay homage to Chatham’s most famous alumni, microbiologist, author, and environmentalist, Rachel Carson, and her ethic of stewardship and care for the natural world. The Fallingwater Residency adds to a slate of MFA courses which contextualize that work for contemporary writers interested in thinking about and caring for our beautiful, fragile world.”
The residency shares its name with another Chatham offering, The Fourth River, Chatham MFA’s literary journal of nature and place-based writing, for which Squillante has served as editor in chief since 2013.
“When I toured Fallingwater last year, I had the sense that it would be a great complement to our program’s mission. But when the tour guide began to describe the design and building of the house alongside Wright’s philosophy of organic architecture, I was stunned by how similar that language was to the language we use to talk about the journal. In The Fourth River, we engage with work that considers how human behavior intersects with and affects nature and place. We are interested in complicating that dynamic. I think Fallingwater’s project is much the same. The more I heard, the more sure I was that this wasn’t just a good fit; it was a perfect fit.”
The residency experience was one of immersion and community, as participants spent five days living at High Meadow, an educational complex located a short hike from the main house. Their days included hikes through the beautiful natural spaces of Bear Run, gentle yoga and nature-focused meditation sessions, and time to read, contemplate, and, most importantly, write. Evenings offered more time for conversation about the day’s activities and assigned textbooks (students read Liliane’s Balcony, Kelcey Parker’s 2013 novella from Rose Metal Press; You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited by Ada Limón; and Fallingwater Rising, a fascinating, voicey account of the building of the famous Kaufmann family home by Franklin Toker) and for sharing work informally.
The highlight of the week was two hours of private writing time inside Fallingwater. The group was encouraged by their guide to take their shoes off to feel fully grounded to the cool slate floors, and to explore parts of the house not open to the public. Some found their inspiration in the bedrooms and some on the famous cantilevered terraces that float as if by magic above Bear Run.
“Being welcomed into Fallingwater as guests of the Kaufmanns was a surreal experience. It was something that I didn’t even know was on my bucket list. Grounding myself in the home by taking off my sandals was something that generated such magic. My time in the house inspired me to start a new short story collection, and I know it provided others with a surge of creative inspiration as well.”—Chatham MFA student
“The Fallingwater Residency definitely added value to my degree program. It worked well as a bridge between my first and second years, I wrote a lot more than I anticipated, and it was a fantastic way to do more environmental and place-based writing.”—Chatham MFA Student
At the end of the week, the group presented their works in progress to an audience of peers and Fallingwater staff members. Back home in Pittsburgh, they are completing a portfolio of creative work that explores the experience of the residency and their relationship to the house and its surroundings, which will be submitted for a grade and earn them three credits toward their degree. Each participant will contribute to a handsewn chapbook produced by the students of next year’s Fourth River staff to be presented to Fallingwater as a token of appreciation for their hospitality.
Squillante says that the residency will be offered as an elective course every other year going forward and notes that, while Fallingwater has hosted educational groups from many disciplines for decades, Chatham MFA students are the first group of writers to gather there in residence. “It was an incredible week in community with our incredible MFA students at a totally magical place,” she said. “I look forward to building on this collaboration in the years to come.”