Mila D. Aguilar recently returned from a three-week international writers’ residency at the Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland, which started August 22 and ended September 12, 2005.

The Chateau de Lavigny is maintained by the Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt, which was set up at the behest of Jane Ledig-Rowohlt in honor of her husband, Heinrich Marie, a famed Swiss publisher who was a friend of the most famous American and European writers of his time, among them Nabokov and Hemingway.

Every Swiss summer, five sets of five to six writers are chosen by the foundation committee for residency at the Chateau de Lavigny.  With Aguilar on her three-week stay were South African novelist Sindiwe Magona, German novelists Beate Rygiert and Daniel Bachmann, American poet Andrew Zawatski, and Hongkong novelist XuXi.

Aguilar is the second Filipina and the fourth Filipino, which includes two Filipino-Americans, to garner the residency since its establishment in 1996.

Aguilar’s poems and photos, some results of her stay at the Chateau de Lavigny, can be seen on http://studentsofenglish.blogspot.com and http://www.flickr.com/people/mila_d_aguilar.