City Center Lodging
Our apartment, located in the heart of the city, offers a comfortable and convenient stay. It is fully equipped to meet all your needs, ensuring a seamless urban living experience in the vibrant center of Bergen.
Expense Stipend
We provide a stipend to cover essential costs such as text production, travel, and diet expenses. This financial support is designed to allow you to focus fully on your creative endeavors and engagements in Bergen.
Cultural Integration
Our program facilitates your cultural immersion in Bergen by connecting you with local creatives and networks.
T-YARD
Writers Residency
Welcome to T-YARD Writers Residency, a unique creative haven where the worlds of literature, design, and art converge. Initiated by the renowned designer and tailor T-Michael, in collaboration with Entrée, a leading contemporary art gallery, and Tekstallianse, a prominent network for the literary field in Western Norway, our residency program stands as a beacon of cultural and creative exchange.
At T-YARD, we are dedicated to fostering a dynamic exchange between international writers and the local literary scene in Bergen. Our program offers a carefully curated experience, blending professional opportunities with cultural immersion. Residents are provided with a comfortable apartment in the city center, ensuring a stay that is both inspiring and convenient. The residency spans a period of two weeks, during which we facilitate meaningful introductions to influential figures, creatives, and networks in Bergen's rich cultural landscape.
For more information about our residency program or to apply, please contact us at info@t-yard.com. We are excited to welcome you to T-YARD Writers Residency, where your creative journey is embraced, nurtured, and celebrated.
T-YARD Writers Residency is brought to you by:
The project is made possible thanks to our sponsors:
Hall of Fame
Photo taken by Filipe FerreiraGisela Casimiro
T-YARD Writers Residency welcomes Gisela Casimiro as our writer in residence in February 2025. Gisela Casimiro (b. 1984, Guinea-Bissau) is a Portuguese writer, artist, performer, speaker, and activist, based in Lisbon. Casimiro works on identity, the body, memory, trauma, healing, anti-racism, post-colonialism, and everyday life. Her practice also involves curation, photography, installation, collage, and sound. She has a degree in Portuguese and English Studies from FCSH/NOVA. She is the author of "Erosão" (poetry), "Giz" (poetry), "Casa com Árvores Dentro" (play, directed by Cláudia Semedo), "Estendais" (nonfiction) and "Privilégio Negro" (antiracist manual, upcoming 2024). Casimiro translated Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider" into portuguese and wrote its preface. Her work has been featured in several national and international magazines and anthologies, and translated into Spanish, German, Mandarin and Turkish. Jornal de Letras did a profile on her writing. In theatre, she has acted in plays by Ana Borralho & João Galante and Romeo Castellucci. Casimiro did the dramaturgical follow-up and wrote essays for Sónia Baptista's "The Anger! The Fury!", did the dramaturgy support of "Blackface!" by Marco Mendonça, and supported the creation of "Belonging", by Raquel André. She has also written exhibition texts for artists such as Kiluanji Kia Henda, Délio Jasse and Pedro Barateiro. Her works "Aviso and Paz Erguida" are part of the António Cachola Collection. She has been a resident at YBYTU in São Paulo. She was on a jury for Companhia Olga Roriz, DOC Lisboa, and TNDMII to choose the new artistic direction. She coordinates the book club at Batalha Cinema Center with Teresa Coutinho. Casimiro is a founding UNA - União Negra das Artes member.
Han Bo
T-YARD Writers Residency welcomes Han Bo as our writer in residence in October 2024. Han Bo (b. 1973, China,) is a poet, artist, novelist, playwright, and curator with a background in international politics and mass communication. He lives and works in Shanghai. He is an honorary writer of the University of Iowa, USA. Han Bo has published the Chinese poetry collections "Borrowing Deep Heart", "The Western Days", "Temple of Arrival and Departure" and "Shanghai Wall", the English poetry collection "The China Eastern Railway", the Russian poetry collection "A banquet of knots", and the German poetry collection "China box", the novel "A life or suite with three bedrooms, one living room and one dining room", and seven travel literature books including "Following in the footsteps of Dionysus" and "Saints and Graffiti : Travel through heterotopia". He won the Liu li’an Poetry Award in 1998, the DJS-Poetry East West Awards for Chinese & International Poets in 2012 and the international literary translation award of Asymptote Journal In 2019.
Photo taken by L. KollogeEric Otieno Sumba
T-YARD Writers Residency welcomes Eric Otieno Sumba as our fourth writer in residence in April 2024. Eric Otieno Sumba (Nairobi, 1989) is a writer and editor with a background in social theory, political economy, postcolonial studies and art criticism. His art and non-fiction writing has been published in Contemporary And, Griot, frieze, Sleek, Monopol, Gropius Bau Journal, Texte zur Kunst and Camera Austria, as well as in African Artists, from 1922 to now (Phaidon, 2021), among others. A shorter version of his Pushcart-Prize-nominated essay ‘Deep Afield’ (2022), first published on Lolwe, was subsequently published by The Guardian. He has also edited books including the O Quilombismo Album (Haus der Kulturen der Welt/Archive Books, 2023), and the poetry collection Rage and Desire (Spazio Griot, 2022). He lives and works in Berlin.
Isabel Baboun Garib
T-YARD Writers Residency looks forward to welcoming Isabel Baboun Garib as our third writer in residence during October 2023. Isabel Baboun Garib (Santiago, Chile 1984) is an actress and writer, she currently lives in Santiago, Chile, where she teaches Literature and a Screenwriting Workshop. She began writing stories to have a deeper understanding of the characters she performed. She left Chile to pursue Creative Writing at New York University with the support of a Chile’s Government Scholarship. Afterwards, she earned a Phd in Latin American Literature with an emphasis in Performance Studies at UC, Davis. In New York she published a book of poems "Un cuarto un nombre" (New York, Pen Press 2011). Her work as a narrator grew in parallel. Her story "Yalaá" appeared in the magazine “Buensalvaje” in Spain (2016). "El Pablo" became a finalist in the short story competition by “Paula” magazine (Santiago, 2012) and was published in an anthology. Isabel’s short story "De Interior" was anthologized in the book “Abuelas Hispanas, desde la memoria y el recuerdo” under the Spanish publishing house Torremozas, and her book of poems “Todos los árboles” was published by Libros del Amanecer (Santiago, 2015). Isabel’s non-published novel “Thread Bodies” won a special recognition in Juegos Literarios Gabriela Mistral (2019). Additionally, her short story “Deberíamos estar todos muertos” won the first place in the short story contest Teresa Hamel (2020). The short story book “Un hermano muerto” appeared in 2018 under publisher Cuarto Propio. "La Tailandesa" is her first novel published by Tusquets Editor (2023).
Photo taken by Dirk SkibaYara Nakahanda Monteiro
We are excited to introduce the luso-angolan writer, social critic, and speaker Yara Nakahanda Monteiro as our second writer for T-Yard Writers Residency. Yara Nakahanda Monteiro was born in Angola in 1979, but grew up in Portugal, due to the Angolan civil war. She has temporarily lived in several cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, Luanda, London, Copenhagen, and Athens. She has a background from studying screenwriting, contemporary art and graduated in human resources. Monteiro writes poetry and fiction and has also collaborated in the creation of scripts and screenplays for audiovisual arts. Her stories and poetry have been published in various magazines such as Granta and Revista Pessoa. She has become a regular guest speaker at universities on topics like feminism and Afro-European identities and narratives. In her own words: she is a great-great-granddaughter of slavery, a great-granddaughter of racial intermarriage, a granddaughter of independence and a daughter of the diaspora. Her poetry collection “ Memories Apparitions and Arrhythmias” won the 2022 International Poetry Prize Glória de Sant’Anna. Her debut novel “Essa dama bate bué!” (2018) is translated in several languages. Monteiro is additionally a certified Shivananda Yoga teacher, Ayurveda therapist and a practitioner of the Marina Abramovic method. During her time in Bergen Monteiro will share her insights in African literature in Portuguese language, and connect with Norwegian contemporary writers, publishers, and artists.
Kalaf Epalanga
T-YARD Writers Residency looks forward to welcoming Kalaf Epalanga as our first writer in residence during September 2022. Kalaf Epalanga is a writer and musician born in Benguela, Angola, in 1978, currently based in Berlin. Some people know him from the Europe Music Award-winning band, Buraka Som Sistema (on hiatus since 2016), and through the columns he wrote for the Portuguese newspaper O Público, GQ Magazine (Portugal), the independent Angolan online magazine REDE Angola and the Brazilian literary magazine Quatro Cinco Um. He has released Love Stories for Coloured Children (2011), The Angolan who bought Lisbon (for halfprice) (2014), and Whites Can Dance Too (2017), his debut novel will be translated to English by Daniel Hahn and published by Faber in spring 2023.
