By Lookout Staff

July 8, 2019 -- Los Angeles County writers working on fiction, poetry or plays have until July 18 to apply for a writers residency program offered by the City of Santa Monica.

The residency at the Annenberg Community Beach House includes a private office for nine weeks on the upper floor of the Guest House of the former Marion Davies estate.

Writing teams or writers working in biography/memoir, essay and nonfiction are not eligible, City officials said.

The residency allows the writer to complete a work-in-progress and share aspects of their work for the public’s benefit.

"This program is best suited to writers who will be able to use the residency period to either finish or make significant progress on a particular work," according to the application.

The writer-in-residence receives an honorarium of $1,500 in monthly installments "as an acknowledgment of the public benefit of the resident to the community."

The fall term takes place from October 16 to December 18, followed by a spring term from January 15 to March 18.

Residencies are offered as part of the City’s “Beach=Culture” program, a series of free performances, exhibitions, talks and events on the grounds of the old Marion Davies estate at 415 PCH.

The program offers "a stimulating cultural counterpoint to the social and recreational opportunities at the country’s only public beach club," Cultural officials said.

The writer-in-residence this spring was novelist and actor Wally Rudolph, who used the residency to work on his third novel, "The Ox, The Horse & The Boar."

Rudolph, who posted weekly updates about his residency on the beach house blog, is know for creating characters who wage a constant battle to survive in a violent world.

Applications for the residency program are available here