Our Story
Dear Butte is the former home of beloved Butte writer Edwin Dobb. Ed wrote many of his centennial pieces in this house on Walkerville hill. As our friendship developed since the early 2010’s we always thought this home would be a wonderful place to host resident writers. Ed sold me this house in the summer of 2015 with that mutual understanding. I then spent a number of years rehabbing the 1894 miners four square cottage to its original vintage condition. Ed has since passed away but the dream of a writers in residence program in Butte became a reality.
Dear Butte and the sister non profit, Working Quiet, were formed in 2018. We have been hosting songwriters, prose, poetry, nonfiction, journalism, and more at the residence since January 2021. Our model is simple, providing a solitary, comfortable, no cost workspace to the resident, in return the Dear Butte resident will host any form of community engagement that fits their area of expertise. We have offered live music performances, author readings, poetry readings, and writers workshops.
Dear Butte also partners with our local community radio station KBMF where residents are interviewed live on air. Traditionally the conversation is a ‘get to know you’ and residents share a reading of their work or a song they have been writing during their stay. Dear Butte is a word of mouth success story, each round of open applications grows in interest by would be residents all across the U.S. We hope to continue to grow, allowing more placement for residents over the years as well as expanding our community programming to reach more of the city of Butte, MT.
Director of Dear Butte and Working Quiet 501 c3
Christy Hays Pickett
