Lillian E. Smith, acknowledged as a significant writer and humanitarian, held at the center of her being her function as a creative artist. She also deeply valued the power of the arts to transform the lives of all human beings. For most of her life she pursued her own creative destiny at her home in the mountains of North Georgia. In that same place she also for many years directed the Laurel Falls Camp for Girls, which served as a place where the life of the mind and the spirit of creative activity were honored and nurtured. It was her expressed wish that such opportunity and activity would have future life. It was with her vision in mind that the concept of an artist's retreat on her homesite was developed.

The mission of The Lillian E. Smith Center for Creative Arts is to offer a place where gifted creative artists and scholars in various disciplines may find the conditions of quiet solitude and privacy in which to pursue their work.

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The Center offers each resident a furnished cottage, which includes a bathroom and a kitchen facility. There are currently three available cottages, two on top of a ridge of Screamer Mountain and one at the base of the property. The Director's cottage is on the ridge; it was Lillian E. Smith's home and library. There is a Common Room that is sometimes used for special occasions and also houses the laundry facilities offered to the residents.

No meals are provided, but grocery stores are conveniently located in the nearby town of Clayton. It is desirable for a resident to have a car, inasmuch as there is no public transportation.

A fee of $100.00 per week is charged to help defray the basic expenses of maintenance and operation. The length of each residency period is negotiable between the applicant and the director.

"I can think of no better place on earth to write, dance, paint, compose or whatever art you do. The Lillian E. Smith Center for Creative Arts is wonderful. Though it's situated on Old Screamer Mountain, no one screams, except the occasional owl. The days and nights are quiet and peaceful, the cabins are lovely, the mountain is beautiful, and the place is suffused with the aura and example of Lillian Smith. I came away inspired and invigorated."-- Ned Stuckey-French, writer and first resident of the Center.

Director of The Lillian E. Smith Center of Creative Arts and President of The Lillian E. Smith Foundation, Inc. is Nancy Smith Fichter.

nfichter@mailer.fsu.edu