Eastern Shore author Pat Valdata, who has won highly competitive awards and grants for her fiction and poetry, will explain how to choose writer’s retreats and residencies and how writers can make the best use of their time in such rare and coveted settings, in a presentation scheduled for September 9 at the Talbot County Free Library in Easton.

The 11 a.m. event is free and open to the public as well as members of the sponsoring organization, the Eastern Shore Writers Association.

In “A Room of One’s Own: Writer’s Retreats and Residencies,” Valdata will discuss how to select a residency or retreat from the many hundreds of possibilities that are available nationwide as well as overseas; how to use your time productively, if you are fortunate enough to be admitted to one; and how to find creative alternatives if you can’t attend a traditional residency.

Valdata is an ESWA board member who lives in Crisfield. She holds an MFA from Goddard College and is an adjunct professor in University of Maryland University College, the online division of the University of Maryland System.

She has twice been selected for prestigious residencies. In 2013 she was awarded a grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation for a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA Thanks to this grant and residency, she completed the manuscript for a book of poetry that was awarded the 2015 Donald Justice Prize. Her award-winning manuscript, Where No Man Can Touch, was published in June 2015.

That same year she received a Raveel Grant toward a two-week residency at the Dickinson House in Olsene, Belgium, which she attended in September 2015.

Her publications include the poetry book Inherent Vice and the poetry chapbook Looking for Bivalve, both published by Pecan Grove Press. Her first novel, Crosswind, was published in 1997 by Wind Canyon Books. Her second novel, The Other Sister, won a gold medal from the Hungarian Association’s Árpád Academy.

Valdata’s work has appeared in literary magazines including Little Patuxent Review and Passager, and the anthology Challenges for the Delusional (Jane Street Press 2012). She has also written feature articles for the magazines Chesapeake Bay, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Soaring, and Women in Aviation.

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