I am extremely honored to have been chosen as the next Director of Soapstone, an organization which has held a special place in my heart for many years.
My involvement with Soapstone began 13 years ago. I attended a work party while the building was still under construction, gathering branches and debris to heap onto the fledgling berm that was rising steadily along the perimeter of the land. What started as giving small amounts of my time to volunteer at a work party or help with a mailing led to being a writer-in-residence in 2007 and serving on the selection committee for 2008. Experiencing Soapstone as a resident and then reading dozens of applications from so many talented and deserving women made me realize just how impassioned I am about this organization.
I made my first donation to Soapstone when I was 25 years old, before the residency program had begun. Even then, I knew the importance of such an organization to women writers such as myself. Having time away from the demands and distractions of daily life to focus on writing is essential for many women writers. The opportunity to focus on a challenging, lengthy, or long-put-off writing project in such an inspiring, natural setting can be the flint that sparks the idea for that next poem, sustains the fire to write that 500-page novel, or ignites that dormant muse. And the women who have spent time writing at Soapstone bring its spirit back home with them, sharing their experiences and work with their communities and the larger literary world.
So I welcome the opportunity to serve an organization which has gifted me and many others so richly. I’m looking forward to working with all the women and men who have helped to make Soapstone such a unique and invaluable community over the past two decades. I want to especially recognize Ruth Gundle and her tireless, generous, and passionate dedication as Soapstone’s original Director. My gratitude, as well, to Judith Barrington, the current and past members of the Board, and to all of the devoted volunteers and supporters who make up Soapstone’s extraordinary community. I am humbled and ecstatic to step into this new relationship with Soapstone and our literary community – one as natural as the Water Studio open to Soapstone Creek, the Wind Studio perched among the trees, and the birds that bridge the two worlds – feet in the earth and wings open to the possibilities of the sky.
BRITTNEY CORRIGAN-MCELROY
