We were saddened this week to hear of the death of Beryl Fletcher, who was the Cottage’s New Zealand resident in 2006. Beryl came to fiction writing later in life and did so with a bang: winning the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in the Asia / Pacific region with The Word Burners. She went on to write four more works of fiction and memoir, The House at Karamu.

In 2012, to mark the Cottage’s 10^th anniversary as a writers residence, a team of trustees and Friends, led by Jean Anderson, collected and translated short texts from the Cottage’s residents. Writers were asked for a memory, a reflection, an extract from a work written at the Cottage: for something that captured their experience of that period in their career.

Beryl sent us the following. Farewell, Beryl, you will be missed.

Randell Cottage, April 2006. Retrospective fragments from the journal of Beryl Fletcher.

We arrive at the cottage at dusk. My partner Mike has accompanied me on the train from Hamilton. Anne Faulkner, the secretary of the trust, gave us a warm welcome.

The cottage is brilliant, haunted of course, but how could it not be? My ghost is a young girl who is dressed in a pinafore and a large floppy satin bow. She serenades me from the garden with cascades of musical giggles. Alas, she disappeared soon after Mike’s departure.

Wellington has the feel of a foreign city to me. The weather is like a living breathing animal that can change its mood in a second. Behind the cottage is a sharp and brooding mini-mountain covered with dead trees cut down to allow some light to fall on an old house below.

I have a large extended family back in Hamilton. It is strange to be alone down here. I realise once more how difficult it is not to mediate, filter, test everything you think and feel through another person.

I fear that I will learn to love being alone too much.

Milo the cat who lives next door visits me but I have to be careful not to trip over him. I wonder if my hip will survive the daily walk over the botanic gardens to the cable car. Each day is structured. I can only write in the morning. I get up at six, work until lunch time then down to Lambton Quay for shopping.

I love this little cottage. I wonder about the women who have lived here. The bookshelves held some printed booklets about their history. Harriet Randell coached her singing pupils in the sitting room. One night, I swear I heard someone singing ‘Danny Boy’ accompanied by Harriet on the out-of-tune piano.

I stand at the old Shacklock coal range and feel the presence of Sarah Randell and am overwhelmed and daunted by the enormous domestic labour that was the centre of her life.

It was a privilege to live and work in Randell Cottage.

Christchurch-based writer James Norcliffe is to be the 2018 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writing Fellow. Norcliffe has published nine collections of poetry, a short story collection and ten novels for young people. As an editor, he has had a long involvement with the literary magazine, takahē and has edited anthologies of poetry and young people’s writing. He’s also served as an assessor for literary competitions and the New Zealand Society of Authors, and has received numerous awards and fellowships.

Norcliffe’s Randell Cottage project is a novel with the working title The Frog Prince, a dual narrative with one strand set in early 19^th century Westphalia, the other a contemporary narrative set variously in New Zealand and Europe.   

Selection panel convener Stephen Stratford says “James Norcliffe is a much-admired poet, YA author and short-story writer. For his first adult novel, he plans a high-concept retelling of the Frog Prince fairytale we all know from the Brothers Grimm version, this time in two timelines and settings. This is the value of a residential fellowship like the Randell Cottage, to enable an author to have the luxury of ‘sailing in a new direction’.

“We look forward to welcoming James to the cottage,” Stratford said.

Norcliffe says he is delighted to be the 2018 resident and is looking forward to his six months in the capital. “I’m very grateful for the chance to work on my project especially in the stimulating environment of Wellington. It’s a city I love not only for its beauty but for its energy, its fizziness. I do hope that this energy informs my novel. The Randell Cottage sounds a perfect place to work on it.”

The Randell Cottage Writers Trust was established in 2002.  The restored
B-category 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 Stephen Daisley.

Hear one of the Randell Cottage previous residents, Renée, talking with Kim Hill on Saturday 18 November:

Perth-based writer Stephen Daisley is to be the 2017 Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writing Fellow. Daisley hit New Zealand headlines last year, when his second novel, Coming Rain, took out the inaugural Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the New Zealand Book Awards. Although an unknown quantity in his homeland, Daisley has won or been short- and long-listed for major Australian literary awards, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction for his first novel, Traitor, the 2016 Miles Franklin Award and the 2011 Commonwealth Writers prize for best first book.

Daisley’s Randell Cottage project is a novel with the working title The River Road: Te Ara au te Awa, the story of an emotionally damaged veteran of the Vietnam war, New Zealander Danny Walker.

Selection panel convener Vincent O’Sullivan says “Stephen Daisley’s selection for 2017 continues the tradition of appointing the finest New Zealand writers for this much sought-after Wellington residency. And now, the bonus of a writer recognized by the highest awards in both New Zealand and Australia, having the chance to return to his own country to work on a novel intimately related to experiences in Asia, as well as in specific events and locations back home.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming Stephen to the Cottage,” O’Sullivan said.

Daisley says he is delighted to be the 2017 resident and is looking forward to his six months in the capital. “Being at the Randell Cottage will be a tremendous boost to this work. On a practical level, there’s the access to Te Papa, the Turnbull Library and National Archives and the Whanganui district and awa. But just as importantly, there’s the sense of being at home.”

The Randell Cottage Writers Trust was established in 2002. The restored B-category historic, gifted to the Trust by the Price family, building hosts two writers a year; one from New Zealand and the other from France. It is currently home to Stephanie Johnson. The 2017 French resident, novelist and advocate Josef Schovanec arrives in Wellington in January 2017.