DEBBIE SUTTON
Mid-winter. A new year. The preceding two have been tough, with attempts at writing stop-start, or non-existent. I resolve to create a ghost story. A maritime, shipwreck idea. I make a start, but my word-choice is off, lacking authenticity. I’m in land-locked Birmingham, in need of an ocean: to watch shifting tides and breathe in the tang of the sea. And the chance of that? Probably nil.
Surprises happen
I doom-scroll the internet, diving black-holes and eventually surface on the Bridport Prize website. A place of opportunity. A residency in Dorset with a chance to focus. It coincides with a ‘Jane Austen: Down to the Sea’ exhibition, the era I’ve set my ghost story in. A map locates Dorchester, and further along, Bridport and West Bay, with Jurassic cliffs, a beach and harbour. Spookily, this seems the place I need to be.
I polish words, and press ‘submit’; mailing a dystopian novel, from a writer of scripts. Testing myself. Can I select the right words? Arrange them in order? Convey the story of my father’s memory loss. I’m on a shortlist when his birthday arrives; his ninety-second, if he’d survived. A day to remember as the email lands, offering me a place on the residency.
Behind the scenes at the museum
Dorset Museum is a heady rush. A whirl of exhibitions and treasure, curiosities and folklore, time travel and ghosts. And millions of artefacts boxed in the basement, silently waiting with a story to tell.
Emma Talbot’s curated events are complemented by quiet think-time, to be used for writing and reflection. Tom, my fellow writer-in-residence is brilliant company, and poet Beth Brooke sets the tone for the week, batting ideas and swapping stories of creative toils and success.
I sit amongst hefty Elizabeth Frink statues, visit the seaside with Jane Austin and get goosebumps when a tiny, silver, Boatswain’s whistle, first blown four hundred years ago, is unwrapped from its tissue-paper shroud. I imagine the commands it gave to its crew, rising above storms to warn them of danger.
The coast road to Bridport, has warnings of fog, but its summer-solstice and Glastonbury Festival will see the week out. And yet, still, a white mist swirls, enveloping me and the road ahead. Did it roll off the hills or seep up from the sea? Minutes later, it disappears, passing me back into sunshine. ‘Spookier and spookier’, I think to myself, shaking my head in bewilderment.
And on to Bridport
Later on, in a darkened theatre, Kate Wilson and Max Riddington host ‘The List of Suspicious Things’; an author event, with Jennie Godfrey recounting the tale of how her best-selling novel came to be. After the talk, we congregate in the Arts Centre courtyard with local writers, discussing books and hopes and word-counts. The following day, tucked away with no distractions, hours pass, and new words for my novel freely flow.
In West Bay I tour the Discovery Centre, soaking up its nautical history. Smuggling, and shipbuilding, rope-making and knots, and flooded homes reclaimed by the sea. I muse on a pebble beach and walk the harbour, watching the tide drag the river far out to sea. With gulls squawking and notebook in hand, I finally resurrect my ghost story.
Fate unfolding
A stop-start motorway returns me home. A vague countdown of junctions, whilst my imagination trips over itself. Miles away. Still in Dorset. Replaying creative dream-shares and heart-to-hearts: encounters with new, like-minded supporters. A kaleidoscopic, dizzy-spin of inspiration and possibility. Was it serendipity or chance? Fortuity or just spooky coincidence? The residency felt like fate unfolding. As if some things were just meant to be.
TOM MILNER
I have no memory of how I first heard about the Bridport Residency; if I had to guess, an Instagram advert, an interruption mid-doomscroll, a nudge from the universe/algorithm to get my writing back on track. I applied because it was something to apply to. Add it to the list. What’s the worst that could happen?
Fit for a King
The week started at Dorset Museum: regal, fit for a king, clad in stone and built with a level of style you have to go out of your way to find in the age of glass monoliths and concrete lumps. It was here that I first met Debbie Sutton, my fellow writer-in-residence, who took just as much pleasure as I did from being introduced as WRITERS. We had tours of the Jane Austen exhibit and the collections room underground; an extensive talk with local poet Beth Brooke and given free rein of the whole building with our visitor passes, even if that meant using the on-site library to get our word counts up. Also, dinosaur fossils? In Dorset? What??
Meeting authors in Bridport
After two days in Dorchester, we were whisked off to Bridport, set up in another fantastic hotel and sat down at the Arts Centre for an Author Talk with Jennie Godfrey. She spoke about her novel, The List of Suspicious Things, and her journey to becoming a Sunday Times Bestseller. “I can’t really explain it,” she said, referring to the book’s success. “But I can tell you that it’s been a dream come true.” The listening audience nodded, humming like church-goers, our own dreams feeling more tangible now there was living proof they could become a reality. It could happen to us. It’s never too late. Afterwards we had the chance to meet both Jennie and author Kim Squirrel, and you’ll never believe how we were introduced.
Removed from the rush
A quiet confidence runs through Dorchester, Bridport and Dorset as a whole. It is removed from the rush of capitalist life. Independent book shops, pubs and restaurants, no one running around, rushing or sweating unless they wanted to be; there’s an element of The Truman Show to it, in that it feels too good to be true. Too peaceful, too sure of itself. There has to be a catch. Maybe the weather was about to turn, or the seagulls had evolved opposable thumbs. I did see a very big one.
After the Author Talk, our time was our own; we were free to explore and write, read and drink. It was hard not to get caught up in the romanticism of it all; in the England of old that, while living in the Midlands, you’d think had disappeared altogether – but that’s just how Dorset would like it. By the end of the week, I’d written more than I hoped for and fallen a little bit in love with a part of the country I hadn’t given much thought to beforehand. I travelled down unsure of myself, unsure of where – if anywhere – my writing could take me and travelled back home as a WRITER.
Debbie Sutton and Tom Milner came from the Midlands to spend five days in Dorset in June 2025 on our fully funded writing residency. Thank you to everyone who made it possible.
