Two leading New Zealand fiction writers
have been announced as the recipients of the annual Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship
for 2013.
The two new fellows, Hamish Clayton and Tanya Moir, will each spend
five months in residence at the Sargeson Centre in central Auckland and receive
a $20,000 grant.
Buddle Findlay
National Chairman Peter Chemis says the fellowship is about giving New Zealand
writers the freedom to craft their stories.
“It has given
creative space to some of New Zealand's most notable writers, allowing them
time to develop and polish their ideas into works that become part of our
heritage" he said.
"Being a
writer can be a difficult task, it requires a lot of self sacrifice. Our involvement with the fellowship
acknowledges this".
Hamish
Clayton holds degrees in Art History and English Literature from Victoria
University of Wellington, where he is currently working on a PhD in English
Literature. He writes regularly for Art
New Zealand and New Zealand Books and was the writer
in residence at the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt from September to October
2012. His first novel Wulf (Penguin 2011) won
the 2012 NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction.
"To
be selected as one of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellows for 2013 is a real
honour and a wonderful opportunity. It
allows me to take some brief time away from my PhD commitments and to honour my
other great passion which is fiction writing. I feel very privileged and lucky to be given this
support and encouragement", says Hamish.
Hamish
will move into the Sargeson Centre in February and will spend his time on a new
novel which he began soon after finishing his first. "It’s a story with a contemporary setting,
unlike the historical Wulf, but it
plays with similar themes. It’s
concerned with the gaps between art and reality, and between memory and
history. With the time and space the fellowship
allows, I’m looking forward to settling in and finishing it and hopefully doing
it the justice that I think it deserves."
The second
fellow, Tanya Moir, a novelist based at Muriwai in Auckland, had her first
novel La Rochelle's Road published by
Random House New Zealand in 2011 and her second novel Anticipation is due to be published in March 2013. Tanya has previously been long-listed for the
Commonwealth Book Prize. Her career,
prior to writing novels, included stints as a radio copywriter, print
journalist and television promo producer.
Tanya says of the fellowship "I'm hugely excited
to be given the chance to sit down to five months of uninterrupted, guilt-free
work on my new project. After some years
of living and writing in relatively remote locations, it will be fabulous to
have not only the quiet of the Sargeson Centre in which to work, but research
facilities like the Central and Auckland University Libraries on my doorstep".
Tanya plans to use her time at the Sargeson Centre to
work on the first draft of her new novel, a contemporary western about an 'outlaw'
and would-be cowboy who has gone to ground in the hills of Central Otago.
ABOUT THE BUDDLE
FINDLAY SARGESON FELLOWSHIP
The Buddle
Findlay Sargeson Fellowship is a national literary fellowship offered annually
in partnership with The Frank Sargeson Trust. The fellowship provides the opportunity for
outstanding published New Zealand writers to write full-time in residence at
the Sargeson Centre, adjacent to the University of Auckland, with an
annual stipend of NZ$40,000 (the stipend is shared if there are two fellows).
The Frank
Sargeson Trust established the fellowship in 1987 to commemorate Frank Sargeson
and provide assistance for New Zealand writers. In 1997 Buddle Findlay became the commercial
sponsor of the fellowship, and is proud to support the literary future of New
Zealand.
For more
information please visit http://www.buddlefindlay.com/who-we-are/buddle-findlay-sargeson-fellowship
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