Smokies Life accepting applications for 2026 Steve Kemp Writer’s Residency 

A six-week writing-focused retreat in Great Smoky Mountain National Park awaits. Smokies Life is now accepting applications for its sixth annual Steve Kemp Writer’s Residency, designed to help the next resident meaningfully connect with the park’s beauty and inspirational qualities while focusing on the craft of writing.

Applications for the Kemp residency are open until November 1, 2025. A candidate will be selected to live in the Great Smoky Mountains for six weeks in 2026. The chosen writer will have the opportunity to be immersed in the natural environment and cultural history of the Smokies while producing new work that raises the understanding of the need to preserve and care for these public lands.

The selected writer will be able to learn about the park and work in their chosen genre—whether it be narrative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, playwriting, songwriting, or other written forms. The writer can also spend one-on-one time with Steve Kemp and follow in his footsteps, creating works that move visitors to a greater appreciation of the park and desire to steward it. Housing and a small stipend are provided.

“This residency can be as much about learning and connecting as it about creating,” said Smokies Life Creative Services Director Frances Figart. “The chosen resident will have the opportunity to meet and network with park partners and can benefit from field trips as well as mentorship. Sometimes writing happens during the six-week retreat, and other times it actually happens after the residency as a result of the experience.” 

Smokies Life seeks applicants whose work touches on the park’s main interpretive themes: diversity and abundance, continuum of human activity, and refuge of scenic beauty. The resident will have access to park archives for research and study. The opportunity to share work in Smokies Life publications is also a benefit of the program. The 2025 writer in residence, biology professor Jim Costa, and his wife Leslie Costa, the illustrator in residence, are producing a natural history field guide of the park’s insects that will be published by Smokies Life, eventually available for sale in park stores.

“Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the crown jewel of the Southern Appalachians, a verdant, teeming, undulating, ancient landscape. There is no substitute for full immersion,” Jim Costa said.

To better observe insect activity and the various life cycle stages of different species throughout the seasons, the Costas split their residency into three two-week park stays rather than six consecutive weeks. This also allowed them to engage with park visitors through Smokies Life Branch Out events, teaching others about insect diversity and species’ connections to native plants.

“We were deeply honored to be awarded the 2025 Kemp residency in support of our field guide project,” Leslie said. “Besides the uninterrupted blocks of time for observing, writing, and drawing at different points in the season, it was so fun working with the park’s education staff to encourage folks to look a bit more closely at the natural world around them.”

The residency’s namesake, Steve Kemp, retired from Smokies Life in 2017 after spending 30 years writing, editing, and directing the publication of hundreds of books, magazines, brochures, and newsletters that support the park’s ongoing preservation. His most recent work is An Exaltation of Parks: John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s Crusade to Save America’s Wonderlands published by The University of Utah Press (2025).

Previous program awardees include author Daron K. Roberts, Western Carolina University professor Dr. Brian Railsback, nature writer Sue Wasserman, journalist Latria Graham, and poet Elise Anderson. See full residency details, as well as instructions for submitting an application, at SmokiesLife.org/the-steve-kemp-writers-residency.