University of Texas' Michener Center creates Steinbeck Writers' Retreat in Sag Harbor

Writers tend to be inspired by other writers. Sometimes while staying at their former homes.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Avad Akhtar ("Disgraced," "Homeland Elegies") will be the first author to stay at the newly founded Steinbeck Writers Retreat, established at Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck's former home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., by the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.

“The Steinbeck Writers’ Retreat will allow writers the breathing room to unlock their creativity in one of the most inspiring settings on the East Coast as they walk in the steps of one of time’s greatest authors, John Steinbeck,” UT President Jay Hartzell said in a statement. “This immersive in-residence program will benefit students — past and present — and broader society."

Steinbeck, best known for the Depression-era novel "The Grapes of Wrath," wrote his final two books at the house, and it was there that he learned he had won the Nobel Prize.

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For this ongoing project, UT has teamed with the Sag Harbor Partnership, the Town of Southampton, the New York State Assembly and the heirs of the Steinbeck estate.

The three-bedroom, cottage-style house with waterfront on the bay side of Long Island was once home to Steinbeck and his wife, Elaine Anderson Steinbeck, an Austin native and a UT graduate. She was instrumental in arranging for the John Steinbeck Collection to land at UT's Harry Ransom Center.

John Steinbeck died in 1968. His wife, previously married to actor and Austin native Zachary Scott, died in 2003.

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Alumni of the Michener Center, named for Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist James Michener, will be among the writers of poetry, plays, fiction and scripts offered residencies there.

“During his lifetime, John Steinbeck was committed to supporting young writers and enabling them to succeed,” said Bret Johnston, director of the Michener Center and the Steinbeck Writers' Retreat. "(It) will continue Steinbeck’s legacy and offer Michener Center alumni an unparalleled resource among creative writing programs.”

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UT already manages the Paisano Ranch, folklorist and author J. Frank Dobie's former 254-acre spread along Barton Creek southwest of Austin, as a retreat where writers can live for six months at a time. The university has been awarding the Dobie Paisano Fellowships since 1967. Among its acclaimed recipients have been Sandra Cisneros, Stephen Harrigan, ZZ Packer and Ben Fountain.

Author Sarah Bird described her bucolic 2010 stay at Paisano Ranch, where she worked on her novel "Above the East China Sea." Inspired by the surroundings, she also contemplated the real-life subject of her later historical novel "Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen," the story of a former slave, Cathy Williams, who was the only woman to serve with the Buffalo Soldiers.

"As I think of the 99 other fellows who, inspired by Dobie’s embracing spirit, have sheltered beneath this same patch of sky, a surprising sense of kinship comes over me," Bird wrote about floating in the ranch's swimming hole for Texas Highways magazine. "High overhead, a vulture cuts its inky calligraphy into the endless blue."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: John Steinbeck's former home in Sag Harbor, NY, now a writers' retreat