Leopold Residency Program seeking applications
The Aldo and Estella Leopold Residency Program, which provides a month-long retreat for writers and artists at the couple’s first home in Northern New Mexico and in the intellectual context of land ethics. The deadline for the May-October season is Feb. 28 with decisions made by March 31.
Estella and Aldo Leopold
The Aldo Leopold cabin in Tres Piedras can be rented for a proposed fee of $175 per night.
Applications are now being accepted for the Aldo and Estella Leopold Residency Program, which provides a monthlong retreat for writers and artists at the couple’s first home in Northern New Mexico and in the intellectual context of land ethics.
In fall 1912, Aldo Leopold, the newly appointed supervisor of the Carson National Forest, married Estella Luna Otero Bergere, a prominent daughter of Santa Fe. They moved into their new house, called “Mi Casita,” in the remote village of Tres Piedras, west of Taos.
It was at Mi Casita that Aldo and Estella began their life together and that Aldo found his footing as a leader in forestry and conservation. He once described conservation as “the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.”
The sponsors of the Aldo and Estella Leopold Residency Program aim to promote that transformative “unfolding” by inviting conservation-minded writers, artists, teachers, professionals and practitioners to Mi Casita. The residency’s mission is to enhance the relevance and cultural awareness of Aldo Leopold’s ideas in addressing the pressing environmental issues and conservation opportunities of our time.
The U.S. Forest Service restored the Leopold house in 2007 and has joined with other residency partners to make it available for the Aldo and Estella Leopold Residency Program.
Since its inception in 2012, the residency has hosted Courtney White, John Hausdoerffer, Bonnie Harper-Lore, Leeanna Torres, Gavin Van Horn, Tovar Cerulli, Priscilla Solis Ybarra and Andrew Gulliford.
Residents are invited for up to a one-month stay at Mi Casita during the months of May to October. Each year, a steering committee selects two candidates from the pool of applicants to become residents.
Each resident receives a stipend of $500 to help defray travel and living expenses. In exchange, residents commit to offering a public presentation of their work in nearby Taos during or immediately after their stay at Mi Casita.
Interested applicants may submit a maximum two-page résumé along with a maximum 500-word statement of interest describing how their work at Mi Casita would extend the legacy of Aldo and Estella Leopold and the land ethic. They should be emailed to Chris Furr of the Forest Service at cfurr@fs.fed.us.
The deadline for the May-October season is Feb. 28 with decisions made by March 31.
Visit leopoldwritingprogram.org for more information.
