In the company of: composing a collaborative residency programme for writers

The Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange programme, or WrICE, is a research project proposing and trialling a model for cultural exchange based on collaborative residencies for writers. At the heart of this programme is the proposition that there is value in creating opportunities for writers to step outside their writing studios and cultural environs to connect and share ideas with other writers, from different cultures and across generations. Perspectives and networks are enlarged and transformed, and this in turn acts, however subtly, to stir and shift national and transnational cultures. Written at the midpoint of the first phase of WrICE, this essay discusses five compositional principles implicit in how this proposition has been developed and enacted. If Ross Gibson is right when he suggests that to find the rhythm of narrative knowledge you roam inside 'but also outside - but also inside - but also outside - but also inside', then the cataloguing of these principles is a test of this idea. The experiment developed and enacted through WrICE points towards new ways to generate networks of authentic cultural exchange that draw upon techniques of gift exchange, what we have called here, 'acrossness', and the potential of writing in the company of.