PARIS STUDIO Halstead Press 2001
Victor Barker editor and contributor.
In 1998 I was awarded a six month
residency in the Keesing Studio in the
Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
I followed on the heels of some twenty
authors who had stayed in the studio and
I decided to make some record of the
studio and its occupants.
I met up with Fred Cress and persuaded
him to paint the cover, based loosely on
me sitting writing in the nearby Café
Louis Philippe.
It was a wonderful opportunity for me to
research my novel Baudin’s Last
Breath.
For Paris Studio I collected and edited stories, essays and poetry by
fourteen contemporary writers who lived in this studio over the past
few years. They include Brian Castro, Bernard Cohen, Gillian Mears,
Marion Halligan, Justin Fleming, Jean Kent,Tony Maniaty, Gary
Catalano, Vanessa Bates, Robyn Ferrell, Robert Carter, Darrelyn
Gunzburg, Amirah Inglis – and myself.
The Keesing Studio is one of more than three hundred owned or
administrated by the Cité International des Arts. The Cité is on the right
bank of the Seine, facing the Isle St Louis and on the edge of Le Marais. Plenty of bookshops and cafés. My favourite’s Le Bucheron,
on the rue St. Antoine, five minutes walk from the Cité .
Susan Grissom, 8 months ago
Ill de la Cite area is usually where I like to stay in Paris so I can be close to my favorite areas.
Must have been a wonderful experience there.