Stuart Hoar named new Katherine Mansfield Fellow

Media Release
Embargoed until 5pm, Thursday 16 November 2006

Stuart Hoar named as new Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Fellow

Christchurch-based playwright, screenplay writer, radio dramatist and novelist Stuart Hoar has been named as Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Fellow for 2007.

His first stage play was Squatter (1987), and his most recent plays include Rutherford, The Face Maker and Bright Star which was commissioned and produced by Circa Theatre in 2005.

He has been Playwright in Residence at the Mercury Theatre (1988/89) and was awarded the Bruce Mason Award for Playwrights in 1988. In 1990 he was Literary Fellow at Auckland University and in 1993 he was Burns Fellow at the University of Otago.

He has also had more than 30 radio plays produced and has written a number of opera libretti.

In 1998, while living in Cambridge, UK, his first novel The Hard Light was published by Penguin NZ.

He returned from England in 2000 to be Writer in Residence at Canterbury University and now lives in Christchurch.

He teaches part time two creative writing courses at Canterbury University.

Stuart is currently completing a full length stage play featuring Tango which has been commissioned by the Court Theatre.

He says he feels very honoured as a playwright to be named as the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellow for 2007.

“I plan to write a play set in New Zealand and in France so time in Menton is a brilliant opportunity for me to complete this particular project. I'm sure living in Menton will be inspirational for my writing, as it has been for so many New Zealand writers before me.”

The Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship is offered each year by The Winn Manson Menton Trust and Meridian Energy to enable a New Zealand writer to work at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France where Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote.

Previous Katherine Mansfield Fellowship recipients include Maurice Gee, Lloyd Jones, Witi Ihimaera, Roger Hall, Maurice Shadbolt and the 2006 Fellow, Dame Fiona Kidman.

ENDS

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