Provincetown Summer

When I think back to my week in Provincetown last summer, I still feel sparkly inside. The sweet colourful houses and gardens dripping with flowers, the ready sunshine, the sea just a few minutes walk from my pad, the art and the gays everywhere everywhere.

You may know that the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts boasts a legendary gay beach town called Provincetown, where queers across the eastern seaboard come for summer fun. Yes, it’s very white, and rich, and male, but I found it delighting and easeful, delicious and SAFE to know that most likely, everyone around me was gay.

Provincetown is also home to one of America’s foremost artist communities, one that is fostered by the Fine Arts Work Center. Founded in 1968 in a former lumber yard, the center has hosted luminaries like Stanley Kunitz, Ai Wei Wei, Mary Oliver, Tony Kushner, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Jhumpa Lahiri. FAWC (as it is ironically? nicknamed) offers week-long summer programs for artists and writers, both IRL and online, plus their flagship 7-month-long residency over the non-summer months.

Back in the mid to late aughts, I unsuccessfully applied to the 7-month residency a few times, for both writing and photography. I’ve attended five residencies over the years, but unsuccessfully applied to many dozens more, some places multiple times. My rejection claim to fame is the Stegner Fellowship, which I futilely applied to NINE times. So imagine my surprise when I was invited to FAWC in 2025, as an instructor no less!

Of course, because the world revolves around personal connection, all credit for this invitation goes to my friend, the incredible photographer Judit German-Heins, who took a summer class at FAWC, and then enthusiastically introduced me to the director David Simpson (thank you Judit!).

I suggested teaching a workshop on memoir or ekphrastic writing (inspired by art), but the subject David was most interested in was how to write personal statements and apply for grants and residencies. This is a class I originally developed in 2019 for Catapult (RIP) and now teach a few times a year for Narratively (my next Narratively session is in April 2026 if you’re interested!).

Because it doesn’t focus on craft or creativity, but rather logistics and meta-writing, it’s not a common class, though it should be! As any writer or artist will bemoan, the business side of a life in the arts is a necessary skill. We all hate it, but have to do it: write about our work, pitch and submit, track and keep going, year after year after year. If you want to join me at FAWC this summer, here’s the registration link:

It’s ironic that my literary successes might seem like the reason I can run this class, but it’s actually my many (many) rejections that make me a better teacher. I know what it’s like to keep getting rejected, via paper in the aughts, and now via email. All those no’s and some yeses, logged and colour-coded in my submissions spreadsheet, means I know how to keep on keeping on, and to encourage others to do so too.

In August 2025, I packed Mishti the car (a 2003 Honda that has been handed down from my mom to my sister to me) with a beach umbrella, a suitcase with all my cute summer outfits, a pilates mat, and lots of snacks for the 6+ hour drive from NYC to Cape Cod. Josh was supposed to come along (partners and kids of instructors are welcome at FAWC!) but then he got scheduled for a film gig last minute, which ended up falling through even more last minute, so he missed out on both ends :(

Once at FAWC, I scored what I think is the best of the instructor flats, the top floor of a barn. Think dramatically sloping roof, a giant room the length of the barn, no interior walls or doors except for the bathroom tucked into a slanted corner, sunshine pouring down from the skylight onto the bed. Swoon.

Even better, I scored the bestest students in my class, if I do say so myself. I had a roster of 5, which I was worried about initially because that’s just about the minimum number needed for a good diverse conversation and feedback session. But these five humans, an artist (Finn Miller), a poet (Sanam Sheriff), a theatre performer (John Dennis Anderson), and two memoirists (Rebekah Shoaf and Melissa Leonard), were a stellar bunch, and our week together was a rich and generous boon. Special shoutout to Aton Crawley, an artist/student in another class, and a frequent beach and art companion (a photograph of his prints are in the gallery below).

Summer classes at FAWC run Monday to Friday, 9am-noon, and then you’re free the rest of the day. Josh wisely advised me not to assign homework, especially for a non-craft class, and I’m so glad I didn’t! Instead, I structured the week to include multiple sessions of in-class writing and workshops, so people could get lots of feedback and a couple of rewrites of their artist statements under their belts.

TBH, 9 in the morning is a little early for me, even if I’m in bed by midnight. But I included lots of breaks in our 3-hour sessions, and started each morning with a round of Hygge, a Scandinavian game which encourages cosy conversation. I also invented an adjective generating exercise, which surprisingly works best when you don’t yet know much about your fellow classmate’s work.

The afternoons I spent at various beaches, eating lobster rolls, walking and biking around town, window shopping and gallery hopping. There’s a free bus that takes you to different beaches and back, and FAWC had a couple of rusty bikes you could borrow and squeak your way through town. Every day was 70-80 degrees, sunny, and breezy. I mean, come on, what effulgence, what grace.

On our last day of workshop, the instructors got together for a lovely happy hour hang. My teaching cohort included the poet and beach photographer Tina Chang, master printmaker Fred Liang, activist and author Sarah Schulman, photographer Joanne Dugan, and author Kelli Jo Ford.

FAWC lets the instructors stay an extra day, so I spent my Saturday whale watching - a magnificent experience! We saw multiple humpback whales, many hunting in pairs, showing off their gorgeous whale tails before diving into the deep. The highlight was seeing grande dame Salt, the 50-60yo whale who was one of the first that biologists started tracking on the East Coast after whale hunting was officially curtailed. The biologist told us Salt has had 17 recorded births! See her diving and flipping her tail in the video below:

On my last night at FAWC, I drove 20 minutes south to Wellfleet for a sunset art show called Project Project, curated by Farm Projects. Fellow FAWC instructor, Joanne Dugan, and another FAWC staff Sarah Dineen were among dozens of artists projecting wild and wonderful art pieces on buildings and walls all over town, from the main street to residences to garages to buildings on the pier. It was a clear full moon night, and a perfect sendoff for my magical week in Cape Cod.

Thank you, FAWC, and I cannot wait to return this summer!

In community care news, there was an 8 million strong NO KINGS march that happened last Saturday, March 28, 2026, across the country (and more worldwide). I protested in Manhattan with 350,000 (!!!) hilarious and outraged New Yorkers. I was so heartened. Hi, America, I see you.

And yesterday, April 1, 2026, I joined a rally in Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights, organized by DRUMbeats, to fight for justice for Win Rozario, a Bangladeshi teen in Queens who was suffering a mental health crisis. Sadly, and we all know this story, he was shot dead inside of 3 minutes by NYPD cops. It’s been two years, and the cop killers, Officers Alongi and Cianfrocco, who murdered Win have not been fired. Email, call, or tag Mayor Mamdani and NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to protest!