The James Merrill House - Writer in Residence Program
Merrill was installed as Connecticut's first poet laureate, an honorary, lifelong title that carries no remuneration. James Merrill won many awards including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 and was one of America's great poets. When he died in 1995, he left his residence in the Borough of Stonington to the SVIA. Upon receiving the property, the SVIA set up the Writer-in-Residence Program to permit promising poets and writers to use James Merrill's apartment. The future of the James Merrill House and the Writer-in-Residence Program are inseparably integrated. The building at 107 Water Street, where James Merrill lived and wrote for over forty years, is a source of inspiration for poets and writers who themselves are allowed to live and work there. The W-i-R Program is nearly ten years old, and past writer-residents have attested to its value to them while they were there. Furthermore, the use of the building to nurture the creative efforts of others is consistent with the efforts James Merrill himself made to help other artists during his lifetime. The W-i-R Program is the use which justifies and makes possible the preservation of the James Merrill House. Not only the house but the quality of the program it supports is the legacy of James Merrill Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, also had a summer house located in the Borough. |
