3 May 2023
New Zealand writer Emma Hislop and Australian writer Fiona Kelly McGregor have been announced as the recipients of the 2023 New Zealand-Australia residency exchange, an international residency programme held by Varuna, the Australian National Writers House in collaboration with the Michael King Writers Centre in Auckland.
The four-week residency exchange will take place during September and October 2023. Fiona will work on her third novel at the Michael King Writers Centre before flying to Wellington to participate in the Verb Wellington Writers Festival. Emma will work on her latest book, a novel, at Varuna and will appear at the Blue Mountains Writers Festival.
Both writers’ centres said ‘the standard of applications for this exchange program was very competitive’.
Emma (Kaī Tahu) is a Taranaki based writer. Her first book of short fiction, Ruin, was published in March 2023 with Te Herenga Waka University Press. She has an MA with Distinction from the IIML and in 2021 she was awarded the Louis Johnson New Writers Bursary. Emma is part of Te Hā Taranaki, a collective for Māori writers, established in 2019.
Fiona Kelly McGregor’s most recent novel is Iris, longlisted for the Stella Prize and shortlisted for the NSW Premiers Awards. Previously, Indelible Ink won Age Book of the Year. Her non-fiction includes; Buried Not Dead, shortlisted for the VPLA, photo-essay A Novel Idea, and memoir Strange Museums. McGregor’s art criticism appears in The Saturday Paper, Sydney Morning Herald and more.
This residency programme is supported by Copyright Licensing New Zealand and the Australia Council for the Arts.
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 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 spring of 2023. We very much look forward to warmly welcoming Fiona to our Centre’.
For more information on the exchange see Michael King Writers Centre Website
