ESSEX — The second and third cohorts of the Alice Paden Green Writers’ Institute and Residency at Content walked along the lakeshore in Essex when they weren’t writing during their respective stints in July.
The residency was founded by Dr. Brenda Greene, professor emerita of English and the founder and executive director of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College.
The residency is named for the late Dr. Alice Paden Green, an iron-ore miner’s daughter who grew up in Witherbee, was the founder and executive director for the Center for Law and Justice in Albany as well as a social justice activist, police and prison reformer and author of two memoirs, “We Who Believe in Freedom: Activism and the Struggle for Racial Justice (2021) and “Outsider: Stories of Growing Up Black in the Adirondacks” (2023). She and her husband, housing developer Charles Touhey, established the Paden Retreat for Writers of Color in Essex.
Greene first came to Essex after a sabbatical managing Nkiru Books in Brooklyn.
“While on sabbatical I really did that full time, but I also wrote the proposal to found the Center for Black Literature and I wrote the proposal to start a baccalaureate degree in English for our department. I had several major projects. I was exhausted when it was time to go back to work, and I had not really worked on any of my own writing. So Elizabeth Nunez actually suggested that I might want to consider that. She had come in 2000. She told me you have to be prepared. It’s about 200 yards away from the lake. You’re in a cabin by yourself. But you will have a chance to focus and to do you own work, and I said that sounds perfect for me,” she said.
Greene contacted Green to apply to the Essex retreat, was accepted, and welcomed by Green and Touhey.
“When I was there, her mother-in-law was staying at the big house (Content) intermittently. There were times when I was up there by myself, totally, in the cabin. Nobody was in the big house. I was initially afraid, but I got my courage and took advantage of it. One of the things I used to do is take drives, early evening, along Route 9 and different routes just to look at the area, and I came across the Valcour Center. When I saw the Valcour Center, I said, ‘oh this is a beautiful space. I wonder who owns it? This would be perfect for a retreat,’” she said.
Greene was thankful for her Adirondack experiences, but she was mindful that others needed it also.
“I had just founded the Center for Black Literature, and I said this would be a really good project that’s in alignment with what we want to do at the Center for Black Literature in supporting writers,” she said.
Green shared that Dr. Jose Torres-Padilla, a SUNY Plattsburgh professor of English, had also retreated at the Essex cabin, and learned that the Valcour Conference Center was owned by SUNY Plattsburgh. Later, she met Dr. J. W. Wiley, then chief diversity officer at the college.
“I thought maybe this can be a collaboration between the Center for Black Literature, the Paden Institute and Retreat for Writers of Color, and the English Department at SUNY Plattsburgh,” she said.
The collaboration resulted in the North Country Institute and Retreat for Writers of Color.
“We did that for a few years, but we couldn’t sustain it. People’s lives changed. Then the funding became really challenging to bring people up. Then, of course, COVID came,” she said.
Valcour was no longer feasible, and Amtrak’s Adirondack Line ceased in March 2020 during the COVID Pandemic. Greene looked for other venues to host the retreat, which was renamed Wild Seeds Retreat, for mobility outside of the Adirondacks.
When Green died in 2024, Greene reached out to Touhey to launch what would become The Alice Paden Green Writers’ Institute and Residency at Content in Essex. The residency’s mission is to “provide a nurturing space for Black Writers to work on their writing in a supportive writing community.”
“This is a way to continue a hosting a residency, and I’m calling it a residency and not a retreat, in the North Country. The first one was last year. Just one session. That’s when we were exploring it. I went up with the idea of renaming it. It didn’t have a name until Charles approved after we were here. He got very excited. He said, ‘You’re the inaugural group.’ I brought up writers. People who were working on projects. So that’s in alignment with what Alice envisioned is to have a place for writers,” Greene said.
Touhey’s family purchased Content from a Miss Wise and Miss Ward in 1944, who created the home’s signature label in books dated mostly from 1885.
“They have the content seal in each one of the books. Don Papson looked at the shield and explained to me what the shield was and why they created that shield. The shield has the house of Content on it, and around it has a knife with a sword like warding off evil and woman with a book for wise. So, these two women created this label,” he said.
The home was originally built by the Derby family.
“We were looking for underground railroad connections, but we didn’t find any. The house dates back before the underground railroad, and even before the Revolution because it has cannonball in the house, probably from the time when the Battle of Valcour took place with Benedict Arnold on the lake. That would have been the time they would have been shooting cannonballs,” he said.
Touhey said his late wife would be overjoyed about the new writers at Content.
“I am happy to facilitate Brenda Green’s initiative. This is the second summer that she wanted to do this. I was so impressed with the first cohort, and the way she operated it. We did two cohorts this summer, and we’re going to keep going on this and the reason why is because we wanted to have more people of color, more writers of color, come to the Adirondacks. Not only because they are African Americans but because they’re writers. The people are coming there with a purpose, which is very impressive if you look at the bios of the writers that were there. They’re just superstars, and they’ve done wonderful things in their lives,” he said.