ROCKLAND — Millay House Rockland is pleased to announce the winners of our Writer-in-Residence spots for 2025-26. Joanna Young, a poet from Searsport, will be in residence in October and William Torrey, a fiction and essay writer from Richmond, Virginia will be in residence in July 2026.
This juried residency competition was launched through local media and literary sources on Edna St. Vincent Millay’s birthday in February and applicants from across the country submitted works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, and journalism.
Twelve finalists were chosen by a preliminary jury to be considered by our final judge, Gretel Ehrlich, author of the much beloved book “The Solace of Open Spaces” and winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Prose; the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as many other honors.
With generational roots in Vinalhaven, Young explores the landscape and the shores of the Midcoast where she feels initiated into a world of extraordinary beauty, mystery and healing. Those spaces are the “infinity” she writes from. Ehrlich said of her work, “These poems are sharp-shinned, instinctive, deep, and diverse…yet spiced with immediate and local detail. The lines are mesmerizing yet piercing and concise… There’s a questing mind in these poems, reaching and touching and floundering again within what she calls, ‘her double helix of loss.’”
Torrey is the author of the novella “Freedom of Movement (Regal House ’27)”. His short stories and essays have appeared widely in American literary magazines including The Missouri Review and The North American Review. A recipient of fellowships and grants from The Delaware Division of the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, he teaches writing at Hampden-Sydney College and lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his wife and sons.
Ehrlich said of his work, “This talented writer gives us swift, light-footed prose that sweeps us into the collapse and resurgence of four men, ill-equipped to face themselves and their questions of shame and redemption, as well as the necessary ingredients and value of true friendship.”
Both residents will receive a stipend from Millay House Rockland’s partner in the residency program, the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation. Each of them will offer a public reading or workshop during their stay at the house.
Millay House Rockland is a nonprofit organization that champions writers, as well as creators and practitioners of all the arts. It celebrates the legacy of Edna St. Vincent Millay and the rich heritage of Midcoast Maine. Central to the mission is rejuvenating the literary landmark that is the birthplace of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Learn more at millayhouserockland.org.
