From the Farmhouse Table: October 2025
A Generative Life Cycle
“I am writing a memoir about being diagnosed with incurable brain cancer five years ago when I was 27 years old and given 3-5 years to live.
I spent my time at Hedgebrook…telling the story of my fight for medical care, navigating my devastating diagnosis, and living in this precious, difficult, and liminal space of knowing my cancer will return despite my current health. I am so grateful for the protected time in which I was able to write fully and deeply about my experiences in the hope of someday making others feel less alone in theirs.”
These are the words of Caroline Catlin - memoirist, poet, photographer and grief worker - about her Hedgebrook residency and the 2025 Rona Jaffe Foundation/ Hedgebrook Fellowship. Caroline is the most recent in a rich list of promising Hedgebrook writers supported by The Rona Jaffe Foundation since 2018.
Each year, fellowships at Hedgebrook make it possible for women to tell stories that illuminate what it means to persist, to heal, and to forge a sense of belonging in a world that often sidelines and outright suppresses our voices.
Most of our past fellowships have been awarded to writers who, like Caroline, are in the early stages of their writing journeys, before they’re published or prior to being published widely. Hedgebrook writers are selected for residencies by alumnae judges who see the effervescing potential in the budding writer and her work in progress.
The Rona Jaffe Foundation and Elizabeth George Foundation specifically support emerging writers at Hedgebrook who have yet to publish a book. They believe in the value of the investment, whether what the fellows write inside a Hedgebrook cottage goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize, as Tessa Hulls did this year, or to first spend ten years as a Buddhist monk before they can write the book, like Women’s Prize for Fiction winner, Ruth Ozeki.
From national bestsellers to Broadway stages, award-winning films to the halls of academia, Hedgebrook alumnae continue to produce some of the most influential cultural works of our time.
Deborah Taffa, our 2022 Rona Jaffe Foundation Fellow, is a fine example. Her book Whiskey Tender, a National Book Award Finalist on many Best Book lists, was released in December 2024. She described her fellowship and Hedgebrook residency in Waterfall cottage as being “a sanctuary as the finish line” to what began as a decades-old oral history project. Hedgebrook saw the promise in Deborah’s work, as it sees the promise in Caroline’s, and in the project of every new resident on the land in 2025.
Which of this year’s writers will finish the book that changes your life, your heart, your worldview, in two months or five years?
Fellowships act as catalysts by validating an author's talent, providing resources to complete projects, and connecting them to industry opportunities, all of which enhance the likelihood of successful publication. Our brilliant alumnae and seasoned staff have co-created a first-rate selection process that consistently delivers a world-class pipeline of writers, who then become judges and part of the selection process for the next generation of celebrated authors. It’s proven to be a replicable and generative lifecycle.
If you’re interested in joining the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Elizabeth George Foundation, Carol Shields Prize Foundation, McKnight Fellowship Residency, and BECU in supporting a life-changing fellowship for a writer, with a stipend as well as a residency, please reach out to Sheri at sheris@hedgebrook.org.
With your contribution—whether a fully funded fellowship, or a one-time or monthly gift— we can continue to offer residencies to emerging writers who generate an outsized impact that enriches public discourse and the imaginations of audiences worldwide.
Will you consider supporting future women thought leaders with a contribution today?
