Enkanto Open Call 2026
Write, for Two Months, on an Island That Has Always Told Stories
Some places ask a writer to imagine a world.Â
Enkanto’s writer-in-residence program invites published authors to spend two uninterrupted months here in Curaçao, immersed in that layered setting, with quiet, gentle support to do serious work on your own writing project.
Enkanto Foundation welcomes writers across a wide range of genres: literary fiction, poetry, children’s and young adult literature, cookbooks, non-fiction, and travel writing. What we ask in return is modest and specific; what we offer is real space, real time, and a place that rewards the attention to your work and openness to engage with the island, its stories, and its people.
Application forms must be submitted byÂ
25 October 2026
This Unique Residency
For two months, the author lives in an arranged accommodation on Curaçao, free of charge.
It comes with everything needed to simply get on with the work, this includes:
- flight to and from your place of residency
- utilities included; gas, electricity, and water;
- wifi/internet;
- weekly cleaning;Â
- enough privacy to focus when writing on an island and to properly unwind when not.
Outside of the agreed commitments (see below), the two months are the author’s own; to explore Curaçao, to write, to engage and to rest.Â
Enkanto Foundation is the author’s first point of contact throughout the stay, and steps in as an intermediary whenever something needs arranging. Because part of their purpose is helping an author’s work reach a wider readership, they ask that applicants have published at least one book with a recognised publishing house.
What is Asked in Return
In exchange for the residency, we ask authors to connect and engage four half-days to activities organised by Enkanto Foundation. What that looks like depends on your work and your interests, but may include:
- an interview for the foundation’s podcast;
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- a public conversation or lecture about your work; with the option of a book-signing session afterwards, if you’d like to sell your books; and
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- leading or co-leading a workshop for local participants: a creative writing session for emerging writers, a cooking workshop with culinary students (for cookbook authors), or a reading session for children at a local school or the museum’s on the island. It’s a modest ask, built around what you already do well and it’s how the residency gives something back to the place that hosted it.
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How to Apply
Applications are submitted through the application form and should include:
- A work plan of the project you will be working on
- A motivation statement explaining why you’re applying to the Enkanto residency on Curaçao;
- An overview of your previously published work with a recognised publishing house, and a short CV;
- A scan of your passport;
- Indication of your preferred two-month residency period in 2027. We take this into account as far as we can, though final scheduling is settled through the selection process below.
Once you submit, you’ll receive a confirmation email; your personal data is only ever accessed by the foundation’s board and is deleted once it’s no longer needed. The board aims to get back to you on availability and timing within three weeks. If there’s a fit, we’ll follow up with a video call to talk through your work plan, publicity deliverables , and the practical details of your stay, before sending a written agreement for both sides to sign.
Application forms must be submitted byÂ
25 October 2026
Selection Criteria
We select resident participants based on:
- the strength and clarity of your proposed work plan and motivation,Â
- how your work connects to the Caribbean or Curaçao;Â
- how your profile contributes to a residency cycle that stays genuinely varied across genres, backgrounds, and languages.
About Curaçao
Ask people what they know of Curaçao and most will mention the liqueur that carries its name, or beaches backed by improbably clear water and a breeze that never quite stops. All of that is real. It’s also only the surface.
Curaçao’s history runs deep, and at times hard: the island’s first inhabitants, the CaquetÃo, were decimated after Spanish conquest brought disease, violence, and forced labour. Dutch colonisation from 1634 turned the island into a hub of the transatlantic slave trade, with enslaved Africans forced into labour on its plantations. In the twentieth century, the arrival of the oil refinery drew new communities from Madeira, Suriname, Lebanon, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the English-speaking Caribbean, each leaving its own mark on the island as it exists today.
Out of that history came Papiamentu, the Creole language spoken by the vast majority of Curaçaoans across every layer of society, and now one of the most prominent Creole languages in the world. Curaçaoans move easily between Papiamentu Dutch, English, and Spanish. A small island, outward-facing by necessity and by habit. For a writer, it’s rare terrain: layered, contested in places, and generous to anyone willing to look closely.
About Stichting Enkanto
Stichting (Foundation) Enkanto is a Curaçao-based foundation, established in 2025, working to build closer literary and cultural ties between Curaçao and the wider world. Alongside the residency, the foundation organises public evenings and workshops for emerging and established writers, and works to strengthen Curaçao’s standing as a place for serious creative work on the page and in person.