Writer Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha) says she is still “quietly processing” the news of receiving the Robert Burns Fellowship for 2027.
Although her debut short story collection, Ruin, won the Hubert Church Best First Book of Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2024, she says looking at the list of writers who have held the Fellowship before is humbling.
“It feels like an incredible vote of trust, and I’m just keen to get to work. I wouldn’t be here without the ongoing support of my whānau and the wider arts community.”
Making the move to Ōtepoti from her base in Taranaki will be a kind of homecoming for Hislop.
“On my dad’s side we are Kāi Tahu, and whakapapa to Puketeraki Marae, so bringing my whānau home to Te Wai Pounamu for a year is a big deal for us.”
While she has been “deeply grateful” for previous short residencies such as the Robert Lord Cottage, and a summer residence through artists’ collective Paemanu Ngāi Tahu Contemporary Visual Arts, she rarely gets a chance to bring her family down south.
“When we do stand in Dunedin, at Puketeraki, or at our whanauka’s crib at Pūrākaunui, that sense of distance just collapses.
“Being present triggers a sensory reawakening where the body remembers things the intellect forgot—a certain way of standing, or why a story happened in one specific place and not another.
“The land holds its own archive, and being there lets me actually read the stories stored in the topography.”
Hislop is currently finishing her second project, a novel, and plans to begin her third book during her Fellowship.
It will be shaped by Ōtepoti from the start through research at the Hocken Collections and University archives, she says.
“Writing from Taranaki meant my first two books were both written across a physical distance, relying heavily on memory and imagination.
“This third book will no longer be a reconstruction from afar—it will be grounded directly on the whenua.
“Being in Ōtepoti brings the work into the physical realm. It’s about kanohi kitea—being present with the landscape and letting the manuscript grow out of daily, living connection.”
