Fractured Atlas

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If you're living in the US and you need insurance/advice as an artist/writer etc. you've got to check them out.

Fodor's article

Below is the review of La Muse in Fodor's "France" guide. It's in the "Midi-Pyrenees and Languedoc-Roussillon" hotel reviews, under Carcassonne.

La Muse

• Address: 1 rue de la Place, Labastide Esparbairenque, Carcassonne, 11380
• Phone: 04-68-26-33-93
• www.lamuseinn.com

• Price range: $$
• Location: Carcassonne

Fodor's Review:

A manor house in the center of a village perched on a mountainside over a river valley, La Muse is a welcome respite from the oft-touristed environs of Cathar country. Functioning primarily as an extended-stay retreat for artists and writers, the hostelry also accommodates shorter sojourns in "Calliope," a spacious suite overlooking the valley, and in several neighboring stone village houses (EUR 400-EUR 600 per week). You can enjoy the extensive La Muse library, the expansive slate terrace and gardens, or a conversation with one of the many distinguished international artists or writers after "quiet hours." The village is 10 minutes north of Lastours and a 15-minute walk from a great meal at Roquefere's Sire de Cabaret. Pros: tranquil and quiet; special experience off the beaten tourist track; short drive from Château Villatade winery. Cons: car is essential for getting here; most accommodations require extended stays.

• Hotel Details: 4 rooms, 1 suite, 3 villas
• In-room: Wi-Fi.
• Credit Cards: AE, V
• Closed: Closed Dec.

Travel and Leisure article

La Muse is in the March issue of Travel and Leisure magazine.

Written by Claire Berlinski, the article names us as one of the ten

"Top Vacations for the Newly Unemployed."

Below is some of the copy from the article about La Muse:

"Finish Your Novel in a Medieval French Village

Have a half-written novel sitting in your dresser drawer? Dust it off at a writers’ retreat in the Languedoc.

Where: Find inspiration at La Muse writers’ retreat in Labastide-Esparbairenque, in the heart of Cathar country in the Languedoc. Its location in a quiet, secluded medieval village means there are no distractions here beyond the rustic food, the local farmers’ markets, the nearby wineries, and the company of other writers. Bonus: writing a scathing roman à clef about your former employers will make you feel much better.

Price: Rates for three-week retreats range from $975 to $1,365, depending on the room. In winter, you can barter for your room by working several days a week—your tasks might include building stone walls or gardening."

Reuters will also be running an article a long the same lines soon.

Julie Baugnet - Art Expo - October

To the left, is the poster for the painter and book artist Julie Baugnet's Art Expo at La Muse on October 24th.

Julie lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she's the Professor of Design in the Art Department of St. Cloud State University.

You can check out better images of Julie's great work on her gallery's website, or, on her blog.

Below, is a video snippet (sorry about the poor video quality!) of the show. It will give you an idea at least of the beautiful work Julie created while she was here during the months of September and October 2008.

August Art Expo

So, the first paintings you see on the video above are by our resident artists last August, Jane Hoople and Rachael Peacock. Jane's are the two top paintings and Rachael's are the three portraits below them (they were all done at La Muse.)

Next: (the landscapes on the easel) Painted by Mary Offermann, an artist from Santa Cruz who spends all her summers two villages down from us in Miraval.

Next: (the earth colored mystical landscapes on the white wall) are by the local artist, Maria Walther.

Next: (the large oil landscapes on the back wall) are by our friend the Texan artist, Thomas Darnell, who also lives here in Aude.

Next: The four very colorful canvasses on the stone wall are by Lance Simms, also from Santa Cruz, California.

Next: Beside Lance are local artist Virginie Campagnie's cool collage paintings.

Last: Christine Lange's abstracts.



Above is a video of Judith Mok, the Dutch opera singer and writer, singing her last piece "Summertime." Judith sang four beautiful songs in the medieval chapel next door to our art studio.

Thanks to Jane Hoople for taking the two videos of the exhibition!

Wine Tasting & Picnic

So, these are some photos of the wine tasting and picnic we all had at the beginning of August at Chateau La Villatade.

In the photos, above and below, are the Morin and Fanning families as well as all of our August attendees :

poets Tadgh O Dushlaine, Ted Deppe, Annie Deppe, Michael O'Loughlin and Judith Mok,

artists Jane Hoople and Rachael Peacock, and

novelists Julianne Mooney and Sue Hubbard.

Judith was also working on a novel and sang some beautiful old Irish songs after the picnic.

Below, the amazing "Rituel" red!

July Potluck

Here's a couple of photos from last month's end of retreat potluck dinner.

We fired up the bread oven and the poet Elizabeth Knapp (green top on the right) made a cool vegetarian/Sicilian pizza which Kerry is cutting on the left.

John and Kerry made a leg of lamb stuffed with sardines and garlic and it was fun doing it and all the other stuff in the bread oven.


Below, Robert Olmstead with Julianne Mooney and Bob's famous oatmeal raisin cookies. They were goooood! Julianne was working on her young adult novel for the month and Robert was working on the sequel to his last novel Coal Black Horse.


Robert and Denise Oventile, below. Robert was working on a book about Satan and Denise was working on her art. Robert's book Impossible Reading: Idolatry and Diversity in Literature just came out.

"Play Time"

We finally found some time to upload some photos from the art expo we had for two local French artists at the end of June!


Part of the show before people got into the atelier to see it.

The artists, who are married and come from the North of France, live in Miraval Cabardes, about three villages away from Labastide. They are:

Virginie Campagnie (with her little girl):



and, Sebastien Darroman:


Sebastien's the smiling guy in the white pants and black t-shirt - the white and black installation of circles on the easel in the corner, as well as the colorful circular one hanging from the ceiling above the man in the shorts and cap are some of Sebastien's work. They are all made out of hand carved wood and then painted, and people move them about as they pass through the exhibit.

Both Sebastien and Virginnie's work is all centered around the idea/concept of play, hence the title they gave to the expo, "Play Time."

Here's some of Virginnie's smaller sculptures:




Below is one of her acrobatic suspended sculptures. The sculptures are made out of wire and papier mache, then painted.

Below, is Jean-Pierre, in black, from Labastide, the droll waiter from the Sire de Cabaret down the road, who is probably telling those two ladies how much he loves them.

Virginnie's sculpture below was at the entrance of the studio and a lot of people got a great kick out of it.

That's Virginie, below, doing some face painting, with Max our baby-sitter, who's a French horse-whisperer.

Seamus, below, as a tiger!!!




John Clanchy, the Australian writer, pretending to be interested, as John talks about potatoes and the price of cabbage in Venezula.

Andras Maros: novelist and screenwriter

András Maros, an Hungarian writer, and former attendee here, has had his first novel, Lemonade, published.

Born in 1971 in Budapest and Andras has written short stories for Hungarian newspapers, journals and magazines such as Sárkányfű, Élet ÉS Irodalom, Alföld, Mozgó Világ and Jelenkor. His first collection of short stories, Puff, appeared in 2001 and his second Neveket akarok hallani (I would like to hear names) in 2003. Both are published by Palatinus.

Andras also writes screenplays. With Károly Ujj Mészáros he wrote the screenplay for the film rubber man, which was awarded first prize at the Budapest Film Review in 2003.

Art Expo Night

Now that all the Sunday art shows are over we've finally got around to posting some photos from the night. You can also check them out on Facebook too.

The guy with the hat and a smile is Denis Morin.

His wine domaine Chateau La Villatade supplied the red and rose wines for the night.

Below, our neighbor Yves Moffre plays his sax in front of Tom Darnell's landscapes.

Yves is the organizer of the Roquefere Jazz Festival. The Jazz Sous Les Chataigniers is on every August for three days with musicians from all over the world playing. Every year it gets bigger.


















Rey, below, shows Janet Stilson his mother's paintings of our village. Elinore Hollinshead, Rey's mom, stayed at the annex last month.



















Two of the local octogenarians, below, enjoy the party. To the left of them is a painting by Mary Offermann from Santa Cruz. She lives here for five months of the year in the nearby village of Miraval.















Seanin, aka The Troubadore, plays his mandolin, below left. Seanin attended La Muse on a barter last month.



















John and Kerry with Christian Bastian. Christian's paintings are barely visible on the wall directly behind John's head, but you can check him out on his website.

Recent Press

Three articles about La Muse were published last month.

The first profile was on Ginny Wiehardt's great Fiction Writing website for About.com. Ginny came to La Muse as a guest at the wedding of Soft Skull press publisher Richard Nash two years ago; as chance would have it, she had already been accepted on a barter residency at La Muse when she found out that this was also to be the location of her good friends' wedding. Ginny is currently revising a novel. Her book of poetry, Compulsion of the Unlocked Thing, was a finalist for the Ohio State University/The Journal Book Award in Poetry in 2005.

The second article was in the El Dorado Sun's Sun Monthly, entitled "The Power of Writing to Heal," by former La Muse attendee, Shanti Bannwart from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Shanti attended La Muse in April 2006. Her most recent article, Eating Her Children, appeared in the June issue of monthly The Tokyo Advocate published by Printed Matter Press.

The third was an interview with Kerry and John in The Connexion, the largest expatriate newspaper in France, discussing how they made La Muse possible.

Robin Hemley - Guggenheim Fellow!

Well done and congratulations to our friend, and previous attendee, Robin Hemley, who has just been awarded a 2008 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship!

Robin has published seven books of nonfiction and fiction. His latest book will about revisiting his youth. His nonfiction includes: Invented Eden, The Elusive, Disputed History of the Tasaday (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003), the anthology Extreme Fiction:Fabulists and formalists with Michael Martone (Longman, 2004), the memoir, Nola: A Memoir Of Faith, Art And Madness (Graywolf, 1998) and Turning Life Into Fiction (Graywolf Press). He has also written a novel, The Last Studebaker, (Graywolf) and the story collections, The Big Ear (Blair) and All You Can Eat (Atlantic Monthly Press).
You can get all of his books on Amazon.

Robin is also the Director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa.