Alison Kerr, Transatlantic Adventures: Artist colony & reconnecting with France – Part 3/4

I thought that the transatlantic experiences of my long-time online friend, Alison Kerr, would be of interest to the readers of My French Life Magazine… and she agreed to be interviewed.

What’s my connection with Alison Kerr

I met Alison Kerr around the mid-2000s, in what we used to call the ‘blogosphere.’ I was keeping a blog at the time, and following a few bloggers, including Neil Kramer, a New Yorker who was then living in Los Angeles, whose writing I found both gripping and hilarious. Alison would often comment on Neil’s blog, and I soon realized that she was an American expat living in France and that she was originally from Pittsburgh, where I had lived for 10 years. She had also gone to college not far from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where I was teaching. I decided to follow her blog. She was (and still is) an incredibly creative woman and a fantastic writer.

A few years later, Alison returned to the U.S., where she settled in Lexington, KY. She would travel back to France regularly and, on one of her trips in June 2010, we managed to finally meet in person and have dinner in Paris with another fellow blogger, an American woman living in France. I met Alison in person again in March 2016 when, while visiting her family in Western Pennsylvania, she swung by Clarion and had lunch with me.

Soon, we all moved on to Facebook and gave up blogging. I have kept up with Alison ever since – even after she left Facebook for Instagram.

A few months ago, Alison embarked on a journey back to France, where she plans on staying for at least six months, managing a property that friends of hers, a Franco-American couple, own in the Cognac region. Alison is also a writer who is finishing her first novel and is very interested in all kinds of creative endeavors.

This is part 2 of our conversation:

Part 1
First trip to France

Part 2
French citizenship, to USA & back to France

Part 3 – this one
Artist colony & reconnecting with France

Part 4
Favorite Places and Advice

On launching an artist colony & reconnecting with France in 2023

Q – You are now back in France, and immersed in a very cool project involving the creation of an artists’ retreat. Can you explain where you are, and what this project entails?

A – I’m in the Charente (the department, not the river!), in a rural area in the middle of vineyards. The property was part of a maison de cognac back in the day, and two of the habitable buildings here used to be lodging for grape harvesters.

My friends are artists—he paints, she dances—themselves, and they want to create a place for artist retreats and residencies. In fact, they’re considering me the first writer-in-residence, as I’ve finished the first draft of my first novel, and I plan to get it into publishable shape while I’m here.

This year is a kind of exploratory year, where friends who are also artists will come to stay and do their thing so that we can see what works and what doesn’t, and what kind of improvements need to be made. I believe this fall my friends plan to host some spirits journalists, as well. I may or may not be here; we decided on an initial six-month stint here for me.

I’ll also be working on creating content for the website for the property—which is now online. There is also a very nice You Tube video of my friends’ property and their project: