Randell Cottage Writers Trust

Applications are now open for the 2020 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writers Fellowship. The fellowship comprises a stipend, currently set at $22,000, and six months’ rent-free accommodation in one of Wellington’s oldest colonial buildings.

The Trust is particularly interested in hearing from mid-career and Māori and Pasifika writers.

Built in Thorndon in 1867, the Cottage has been painstakingly restored and is close to the National Library, the Turnbull Library, and National Archive. It’s provided a peaceful inner-city base for writers from a range of genres: novelists, poets, biographers…

The first New Zealand resident was Peter Wells, in 2002. He’s been followed by Tim Corballis, Michael Harlow, Renée, Beryl Fletcher, Whiti Hereaka, Jennifer Compton, Kirsty Gunn, Pat White, Peter Walker, Vivienne Plumb, Denis Welch, Tina Makereti, Witi Ihimaera, Owen Marshall, Stephanie Johnson, Stephen Daisley, James Norcliffe and Paddy Richardson.

The Randell Cottage Creative NZ Writer in Residence is selected by a Trust-appointed committee to work on an approved project from July to December each year. The deadline for applications is Friday, 1 November 2019. The successful applicant will be announced in December.

Note: The 2020 fellowship is advertised subject to confirmation of funding from CNZ’s Arts Grants programme. Those decisions are expected in early to mid-November

The evening of 27 March may well have been a dark and stormy night but the atmosphere inside the National was warm and welcoming, as current resident Karin Serres gave her audience an insight into her creative process, her information gathering (and magpie tendencies) and her journey from theatre to literature.

Karin’s next event in Wellington will be at the Alliance Française on 9 May. Details to follow.

Photos: Tim Gruar for the Randell Cottage Writers Trust.

A scenographer by training, the Randell Cottage’s 2019 French resident is Karin Serres whose work traverses many genres – novels, picture books, plays, for stage and radio, and translation.

Join us for an evening of conversation, readings and reflection on the new perspectives that come from writing away from home on Wednesday 27 March at the National Library.

Wednesday, 27 March
5:30pm – 7:30pm
Programme Rooms, Ground Floor
National Library, corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets
Thorndon
RSVP: info@randellcottage.co.nz

The evening is a joint project of the Friends of the Randell Cottage, The Randell Cottage Writers Trust and the National Library, with the support of the Embassy of France in New Zealand.

Peter Wells
Photo by Liz Marsh

We were deeply saddened this week by the death of Peter Wells, the first writer to live and work in the Randell Cottage as the CNZ fellow. Peter was a filmmaker, a novelist, a biographer, an historian. He was instrumental in the establishment of two literary festivals. He wrote, and lived, with extraordinary elegance, grace, and humanity. His most recent work, “Hello Darkness”, released just last week, is his diary as a Stage IV cancer patient, first published on his Facebook page and then as a series of essays on The Spinoff.

The many moving tributes to Peter as an artist and a friend, such as these from Jeremy Hansen and David Herkt give a sense of his contribution to New Zealand film and letters, and to the lives of LGBTQI New Zealanders.

© Bertrand Couderc

A scenographer by training, Karin Serres, the Randell Cottage’s 2019 French resident is a novelist, a playwright, for stage and radio, and a translator. She writes for general and YA audiences and will be in Wellington till late June. Her Randell project is a sequel to her 2018 novel, Happa no ko le peuple de feuilles (Happa no ko the leaf people).

Photo credit: Caroline Davies

Dunedin-based writer Paddy Richardson is to be the 2019 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writing Fellow. Richardson has published seven novels and two short story collections. Her Randell project, The Green of Spring is the sequel to her 2017 novel Through the Lonesome Dark. Set in WWI New Zealand, it tells the story of young mining activist Otto Bader who is arrested as an ‘enemy alien’ and incarcerated on Somes Island along with others of Austrian and German origins.

Selection panel convener Stephen Stratford says “Many of us wanted to know what happened next for the characters in Through the Lonesome Dark, longlisted for the 2019 Dublin Literary Award, which is right up there with the Booker. For the sequel, Paddy will be able to research the Turnbull Library’s holding of letters and diaries of Somes Island inmates. A perfect synchronicity of project and residency.”

Richardson says she is delighted to be the 2019 resident and is looking forward to her six months in the capital.

The Randell Cottage Writers Trust was established in 2002.  The restored Category II historic building, gifted to the Trust by the Price family, hosts two writers a year; one from New Zealand and the other from France. It is currently home to Christchurch writer James Norcliffe. The 2019 French resident, novelist and dramatist Karin Serres arrives in Wellington in late January 2019.