Entries for the 2025 residency award are open until Sunday, September 14. They must be emailed to stephen11@xtra.co.nz with the subject line in screaming caps THE 2025 SURREY HOTEL WRITERS RESIDENCY AWARD IN ASSOCIATION WITH NEWSROOM AND MR AND MRS FRIZZELL. Send in a brief covering letter outlining the project you have in mind, and it wouldn’t hurt to maybe attach a few pages of the work in progress. Word Doc only, don’t even think about Google Doc or PDF. Something about who you are would be useful.
The loot will only be transferred when the winners actually arrive at the Surrey Hotel.
Good luck to all who apply; the clock ticks steadily towards the chimes of midnight, Sunday, September 14.
Full list of first-prize winners of the Surrey Hotel writers residency award:
2016, Kelly Dennett, who went on to to publish The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Jane Furlong (Awa Press), winner of the Ngaio Marsh crime writing award for best book of nonfiction
2017, Serena Benson. Nothing seemed to come out of it and I never heard from her again
2018, Megan Dunn, who worked on a brilliant work of nonfiction, The Mermaid Chronicles (Penguin)
2019, Colleen Maria Lenihan, who worked on Kōhine (Huia), one of the best short story collections of the past 20 years
2020, Mia Gaudin. Nothing seemed to come out of it and I haven’t heard from her in a while
2021, Talia Marshall, who was unable to experience the Surrey Hotel because of lockdown and that, but had the wherewithal to finish Whaea Blue (Te Herenga Waka University Press), one of the best books of 2024
2022, J Wiremu Kane. Nothing seemed to come out of it and I never heard from him again. [New information to hand: He is currently the Verb Wellington Writer in Residence With Katherine Mansfield House & Garden.]
2023, Emma Ling Sidnam, who worked on a collection of short stories
2024 Paula Morris, who worked on a novel about three Māori living in Britain at the time of the Brexit vote.
As follows, a list of finalists who stayed at the Surrey Hotel and worked on manuscripts that were later published to various acclaim: Ashleigh Young (poetry collection How I Get Ready, Victoria University Press); John Summers (essay collection The Commercial Hotel, Victoria University Press); Naomi Arnold (astronomy classic Southern Nights, HarperCollins); Claire Baylis (crime novel Dice, Allen & Unwin); Nick Ascroft (poetry collection The Stupefying, Te Herenga Waka University Press); Shilo Kino (YA novel The Porangi Boy, Huia); Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall (short story collection Tauhou, Te Herenga Waka University Press); Laurence Fearnley (literary novel At The Great Glacier Hotel , Penguin); and Becky Manawatu (literary novel Kataraina, Makaro Press).
