The Michael King Writers Centre is pleased to announce that next year’s programme of residencies at the historic
Signalman’s House on Takarunga Mt Victoria in Devonport, Auckland, is now open for applications. Writers awarded a
residency can look forward to peaceful accommodation, the use of a writing studio, a generous stipend and the
opportunity to focus on a specific writing project.
The 2020 programme offers 19 residencies to emerging and established writers for periods of two to five weeks each.
Highlights include: four residencies specifically for Māori or Pasifika writers and a prestigious partnership with the
University of Auckland - offering extended opportunities to established writers.
Applications close on Monday 16 September, 2019 and the selections are expected to be announced in early November.
Seventy-five New Zealand writers have held residencies at the centre since 2005. These include Ian Wedde (who went on to
become the Poet Laureate for New Zealand 2011-2013), and Man Booker prize winner Eleanor Catton, who wrote the final
draft of her novel The Luminaries at the Centre. Other previous residents Vincent O’Sullivan, David Eggleton and Anne Kennedy, were longlisted for the
2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards; and Joanne Drayton was the winner of the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for
General Non-Fiction.