Shilo Kino Awarded 2025 Shanghai Writing Residency

 We are very happy to announce that Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Te Ata), has been selected to join the Shanghai Writers’ Association’s International Writing Programme 2025.

This opportunity is available through a partnership between the Michael King Writers Centre and the Shanghai Writers’ Association.

Shilo will join writers from eight other countries for two months in Shanghai in September and October this year. The writers receive air travel, free accommodation and a small stipend for living expenses.

An award-winning author and journalist, Shilo’s debut novel, The Pōrangi Boy, won the Young Adult Fiction Award at the 2021 New Zealand Book Awards. In 2024, she released her first adult fiction novel, All That We Know. It debuted at number one on the New Zealand fiction chart and was longlisted for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards - Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. Shilo is passionate about te ao Māori and speaks Mandarin, having lived in Hong Kong. She is currently completing her master’s thesis at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland.

In 2014 Alison Wong was the first New Zealand writer selected to join the International Writers’ Programme in Shanghai – Heidi North Bailey followed in 2016 and Frances Edmond in 2018. After a five year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic, Melinda Syzmanik was selected in 2023.

Since the exchange began in 2013 five Chinese writers have enjoyed a residency at the Michael King Writers Centre. Huo Yan, a young writing star from Beijing, took up the first Fellowship and in 2015 acclaimed novelist Xiao Bai from Shanghai was the second resident; Yin Jian Ling, was the 2017 resident. In 2019 Sun Wei was at MKWC and last year Danyan Chen was selected as the fifth Chinese writer to travel to Aotearoa. Danyan is known for her impactful contributions to both fiction and non-fiction, particularly focusing on youth and urban narratives in China and the overseas Chinese language community.

Chair of the Board of Trustees, Mel Winder says, ‘The Shanghai residency offered as part of the ongoing partnership between the Michael King Writers Centre Trust and the Shanghai Writers’ Association is a highlight for the Trust. We warmly congratulate Shilo Kino on her forthcoming residency in Shanghai’.

Mrs. Hu Peihua from the Shanghai Writers Association said ‘It is our hope that the international writers will be inspired by their exposure to Chinese culture and Shanghai literature while living in Shanghai. To further this aim, we will host a series of literary events, with a view to introducing the guest writers to the city and the people of Shanghai’.

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