Kate Mildenhall has been announced as the recipient of the inaugural New Zealand-Australia residency exchange, an international residency program held by Varuna, the Australian National Writers House in collaboration with the Michael King Writers Centre in Auckland and the Verb Wellington Writers Festival.

Kate is the much-acclaimed author of the novels Skylarking (Black Inc.) and The Mother Fault (S&S). The Mother Fault was longlisted for the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and shortlisted for the 2021 Aurealis Science Fiction Novel of the Year.

Subject to travel restrictions, the four-week residency exchange will take place in October 2021. Kate will work on her third novel at the Michael King Writers Centre before flying to Wellington to participate in the Verb Wellington Writers Festival.

Varuna said ‘the standard of applications for this exchange program was very competitive’. The shortlisted applicants Anwen Crawford, Michelle Cahill and Warren Ward were highly commended by the judges.

The Varuna International Writers Residency Program is supported by the Australian Copyright Agency Cultural Fund and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

In exchange a New Zealand writer will be selected to stay at Varuna in February 2022. Applications will open in late August.

Chair of the Board of Trustees, Melanie Laville-Moore says ‘Losing professional international opportunities has been a tough consequence for many of our established writers in Aotearoa. The Michael King Writers Centre is delighted with this important new partnership with Varuna House in Australia, and enabling a New Zealand writer four weeks in the idyllic Blue Mountains of New South Wales during the summer of 2022.  We very much look forward to warmly welcoming Kate to our Centre in October.’

For more information on the exchange see Michael King Writers Centre Website.