Writer profiles

Titaua Peu – 2025

Titaua Peu – 2025

Posted on by Randell Cottage

Titaua is considered one of the principal French-speaking voices in the literature of the Pacific, with her writings focusing on Polynesian society, the impact of colonialism and the place of women. 

Titaua plans to use her residency to continue working on a major project comprising three volumes, presenting a near future marked by a reverse migration, in which inhabitants of Aotearoa have migrated north to the island of Mangareva following a great war. Combining a futuristic situation with social realism, the narrative will also feature Mā’ohi cosmogony and explore the links between Indigenous peoples of Polynesia, notably Mā’ohi and their Māori descendants. 

Titaua is the first-ever Randell Cottage laureate from French Polynesia

Hinemoana Baker – 2024

Hinemoana Baker – 2024

Posted on by Randell Cottage

Poet and performer Hinemoana Baker (Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-Tonga, Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Kāi Tahu, England, Germany) will be using her six months in residence at Randell Cottage to work on a new collection of poetry, Exhaust World. 

Hinemoana is a writer, performer, and educator currently based in Berlin. She has published four previous collections of poetry with Te Herenga Waka University Press: mātuhi | needle (2004), kōiwi kōiwi (2010), waha | mouth (2014) and Funkhaus (2021).  

Of her new project Exhaust World she says: “As the name suggests, it will feature poems of despair and desperation. There will also be a good dose of fury, revenge, and some very dark jokes. The overall vibe is, yes, exhausted, both globally and personally. As if the title were an instruction, spoken into the past, and addressed to the machinery of geopolitics in which we find ourselves enmeshed no matter where on earth we live today.” 

Hinemoana says she is thrilled to be taking up the residency: “I’m still pinching myself a bit, to be honest. Any opportunity to be able to write uninterrupted, especially with financial support, is extraordinarily appreciated. The huge bonus with this residency, of course, is that it means I can come home for a while. The last eight years in Germany have been extraordinary and formative, to say the least, and I am so looking forward to bringing my full self to the Randell Cottage Writers Residency and to the city I love, Te Whanganui-a-Tara.”

 

Julien Blanc-Gras – 2024

Julien Blanc-Gras – 2024

Posted on by Randell Cottage

Julien Blanc-Gras is a writer, traveller, journalist, and father, and has explored the four corners of the world, drawing inspiration from his journeys for many of his works.

His debut book, Gringoland, was awarded at the First Novel Festival in Chambéry in 2005. Among his other works are Paradise (before Liquidation) and A Bit of a Special Envoy, written during the lockdown to counter the prevailing atmosphere.

He has also contributed extensively to the print media, with publications in renowned outlets such as M le magazine du Monde, L’Obs, Philosophie magazine, Le Temps, Le 1, Long cours, Aller-Retour, GQ, Technikart, and Grazia. He is also a presence on Radio France with the podcast Oli and a travel column on France Inter, as well as on Radio Nova with a literary column.

Following the birth of his son and his account of his experiences during his partner’s pregnancy in In Utero, he was entrusted with a column in Parents magazine. In his novel Like in War, he continues to explore the theme of fatherhood in our modern world.

Further reading

Watch an interview with Julien Blanc-Gras

Rachel O’Neill – 2023

Rachel O’Neill – 2023

Posted on by Randell Cottage

Crop of Rachel O'Neill. Photo by Alison Glenny

Rachel O’Neill is an artist, film maker, teacher of creative writing, communications professional, and, above all poet. O’Neill will be using their six months at Randell Cottage to work on two projects: completing their third book, Symphony of Queer Errands, and a fourth, a collection of prose poems titled Master of the Female Half-Lengths.

O’Neill is a graduate of the Master of Creative Writing workshop at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University’s Institute of Modern Letters. Their two previous collections of prose poems are One Human in Height (Hue and Cry Press, 2013) and Requiem for a Fruit (We Are Babies, 2021). They have been extensively published in anthologies and journals – most recently Best Small Fictions 2020 (Sonder Press, 2021), Out Here: An Anthology of Takatapui and LGBTQIA+ Writers from Aotearoa New Zealand (AUP, 2021), and Best New Zealand Poems 2019 ( IIML, 2020).

Wearing their artist hat, they provided illustrations for Bernadette Hall’s 2016 poetry collection Maukatere: floating mountain (Seraph Press, 2016) and they collaborate with arts collective All the Cunning Stunts, exhibiting in the European Union and Aotearoa.

Further reading

Video by Godwit Films
Director – Jeremy Macey 
Camera / editor – Emily Ardern
Sound recordist – Matthew Thompson 
Sedef Ecer – 2023

Sedef Ecer – 2023

Posted on by Randell Cottage
Sedef-Ecer. Photo by Brigitte Baudesson

Born in Istanbul, Sedef Ecer grew up in the world of movie-making, theatre and television. Her latest book, Trésor national, was published by JC Lattès in 2021. She writes in different genres and in two languages: she has written more than 500 articles or opinion pieces for the press, novels, screenplays, explored new genres and translated Montaigne, Charlotte Delbo and Saint-Exupery’s works into Turkish.

As a writer and actress, Sedef Ecer has been a nominee or a recipient of prestigious awards. (French National Center of Theater, French National Center of Cinema, Beaumarchais Award, French Society of Multimedia Writers, Draft of a Dream, Velasquez Price, Writing Stipend of Paris Region, National Theater Award of Guérande, High School Students Favorite Play, nominated for Godot Award, Collidram Award, Best Television Comedy La Rochelle Festival) She is one of the founders of Parlement des Écrivaines Francophones.

Her major work is in the field of theatre. Her plays have been performed in numerous theatres and festivals in different countries, published, awarded and translated into Polish, Turkish, Armenian, German, Greek, English, Persian and Italian. As an actress, she has played in feature films and several plays since she was three years old and has worked recently under the directions of Amos Gitaï (with Jeanne Moreau), Lorenzo Gabriel and Thomas Bellorini.

During her stay in Wellington, she hopes to explore an exciting subject: a novel that will focus on the role of New Zealand and Turkish women and the fighting at Gallipoli – her parents live close to the site, and the project is something she has had in mind for some years.

Stuff, 05/03/2023: Turkish-born novelist in NZ to research women and Gallipoli

Further reading

Watch Sedef Ecer – an interview at Randell Cottage, from the French Embassy in Aotearoa New Zealand
Caroline Laurent – 2022/23

Caroline Laurent – 2022/23

Posted on by Randell Cottage
Photo by Philippe Matsas

Born in 1988 and of French-Mauritian origins, Caroline grew up between French Polynesia, Bordeaux, Italy and Paris, where she currently resides. She still travels regularly to Mauritius to visit her maternal family.

Caroline is a graduate of modern French literature and has been an editor for the past 12 years (JC Lattès, Les Escales, Stock). Her areas of interest include contemporary literature and non-fiction.

Following the success of And suddenly, Freedom, co-written with Evelyne Pisier (80,000 copies sold, and awarded Prix Marguerite Duras and Grand Prix des Lycéennes ELLE 2018), in 2020 she released her second novel, The Shores of Anger (Prix Maison de la Presse 2020) in which she pursues her exploration of the colonial world and the lives of prominent women who have shaped history.

Her feminist convictions and commitment to fighting for what she believes in, led her to establish an opinion column against sexual violence in the publishing industry, bringing together 50 literary figures.

Read Caroline’s full report on her stay here: en français / in English

Read Caroline’s report on her second visit (November and December 2023) here: en français / in English

Caroline Laurent – an interview at Randell Cottage, from the French Embassy in Aotearoa New Zealand

Watch the extended interview.

Lynn Davidson – 2021

Lynn Davidson – 2021

Posted on by Randell Cottage
Photo by Suzanne R Livingstone

Lynn Davidson is a poet and novelist. Davidson’s most recent publication is the poetry collection Islander. She won the Poetry New Zealand’s 2020 poetry Award and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Massey University.

Davidson will be using her time at Randell Cottage to write a memoir of her move to Scotland in 2016 and how, when prevented by Covid-19 from returning to New Zealand, she began exploring the life of her Great-Aunt Vida.

Watch Lynn Davidson talk about her time as the resident at Randell Cottage

Credits:
Director: Jeremy Macey
Cinematographer: Laetitia Belen
B camera operator: Thaïs Ehinger
Sound recordist: Jessy McNamara
Editor: Shane Loader

 

Further reading

Amaury da Cunha – 2020

Amaury da Cunha – 2020

Posted on by Randell Cottage

Photo of Amaury da CunhaWith a speech therapist mother and a photographer father, it was perhaps almost inevitable that writer and photographer Amaury da Cunha would grow up with a deep understanding of the power of words and images.

Born in Paris, Amaury da Cunha studied modern literature before pursuing photography at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles. He combines both interests in his work as a photo editor for Le Monde’s literary supplement, in his own writing and exhibitions, and in collaborative projects with other writers and photographers.

His first book, Saccades, a collection of images and texts, was published by Yellow Now. Après tout was released by Caillou Bleu in November 2012, which coincided with his first personal exhibition in Paris for Photography Month. 2015 saw the publication of two books: Fond de l’œil (Roergue), a collection of short texts (odes, meditations, love stories…) on photography; and Incidences (Filigranes), a second collection of images and texts. The autofiction Histoire souterraine (Rouergue) was published in 2017 and followed a year later by Demeure (H’artpon), a book of images accompanied by texts written by Sylvie Gracia.

His photography has been exhibited throughout France and in Belgium.

Amaury da Cunha’s Randell project is an exploration of the life of Minnie Dean, the late nineteenth-century baby farmer who was convicted of infanticide and hanged.

Further reading