It would have been absolute heaven to have that sense of support when I was a teenager beginning to write. Varuna exists because of the generosity of a local retired schoolteacher, Michael Dark. Eleanor Dark and her doctor husband, Eric, he inherited their Katoomba house and two-acre garden in 1989, and donated it to the Eleanor Dark Foundation for a residential writers' centre modelled on Hawthornden in Scotland. The Australia Council contributes to many programs. Now there are also mentorships which match new writers with experienced ones, editing programs, manuscript development with editors from HarperCollins, and this year drama fellowships and mentorships in collaboration with Playworks.
Writers can also pay a modest rate to retreat there.
Linda Jaivin has partly written most of her books there, away from the inner-city distractions that inspire her, and is planning a satirical thriller set at Varuna itself. Writers come from all over the country or, like Tegan Bennett, from up the road. They feel the spirit of Eleanor Dark through her books and photographs, her cigarette-scarred desk in the garden studio, and her son, Michael, who does repairs and has the writers' endless gratitude. Above all, they praise Peter Bishop. A Scots-born Blue Mountains resident, who has played piano in restaurants, organised classical music events and written radio features on poets, Bishop took over as director of Varuna in 1994.