At the CENTER of It All

THE DRIVEWAY’S EASY TO MISS, a stony track off a small highway in the middle of the Adirondacks that takes you through the woods and over a bridge, past the caretaker’s house and barns, before climbing through a field and around to the great house on the lake, 12 rooms where artists and activists from around the world gather for monthlong retreats—a hideaway in the wilderness to think, talk and create. This is Blue Mountain Center.

It’s the last four-week residency of the year, early October, but the weather feels much later, a cold gray mist swirling up from the lake. The director of the center, Ben Strader, has gathered the new residents on the porch for the start of what he calls his walkabout tour. Many of the arrivals have never heard of the Adirondacks before, much less visited, and Ben hopes his tour of the grounds and its history will give them a sense of the place, an introduction to the land and the people who lived before them.

Among the group are a writer from Oakland working on prison reform and a filmmaker from Puerto Rico helping hurricane victims. There’s a Black writer from New Haven writing about a murdered family member, and a white couple from Chicago, union organizers writing their memoirs. There’s an Indian-American writer who runs the Unicorn Author’s Club and a poet who runs the Soul Fire Farm, south of Albany, who’s also a founding member of the hip-hop group Climbing Poetree.

They’re standing on the porch