Randell Cottage Writers Trust selects Peter Walker to be the 2011 New Zealand Writer in Residence

8-12-10
http://www.randellcottage.co.nz/

Expatriate author Peter Walker is the New Zealand Writer in Residence at Wellington’s Randell Cottage for 2011. Peter Walker works as a journalist in London, and is the author of the historical memoir The Fox Boy (Bloomsbury 2001) set in Taranaki and dubbed ‘book of the moment’ by The Daily Telegraph, and an historical novel The Couriers Tale (Bloomsbury 2010).

He began work on The Dominion in 1976 before leaving Wellington to work in Australia, and then to the UK in 1986 to work for newspapers that included the Independent and Independent on Sunday, where he was Foreign Editor. He has also written for the Financial Times and Granta.

Peter Walker will use his six months in Randell Cottage to work on completing a novel provisionally entitled The Watcher’s Diving, which is set in NZ, the US, India and Lebanon. He will take up his position at Randell Cottage in April next year.

Peter says he’s wanted to come back and work in Wellington for a long time. ‘On flying visits I always notice the energy in the air and think I should come back and live here,’ he says. ‘Now I am coming and I couldn't be more pleased. I hope to get a lot of work done in six months - maybe even to finish the book I'm working on. Or at least complete the next draft.’

Chair of the selection panel, Vincent O’Sullivan, says, ‘The Randell Cottage Writers Trust is pleased to announce Peter Walker’s appointment and to support the writing of his novel.’ The Randell Cottage hosts a French writer for six months of the year and a New Zealand writer for six months. The current French writer is poet and novelist Yann Apperry until April 2011.