Michael King Residencies Announced

Four writers selected for the residency programme at the Michael King Writers’ Centre next year will be bringing to life a variety of works including; literary fiction, a novella, non-fiction biography and a collection of poetry. 

The award-winning writers selected for the four residencies at the Devonport writers’ retreat are short story writer and poet, Frankie McMillan from Christchurch, novelist and playwright Whiti Hereaka from Wellington, critic and journalist Anthony Byrt from Auckland and Anna Jackson an Associate Professor in English at Victoria University, Wellington.  

The six-month University of Auckland Residency at the MKWC has been awarded to Frankie McMillan for a book of small narrative forms, mainly prose poetry and flash fiction. A postcard of a chimpanzees’ tea party, pasted by Anne Frank on her bedroom wall in Amsterdam has been the starting point for this new work. In 2009 Frankie won first prize in the New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition. In both 2013 and 2015 she was the winner of the New Zealand Flash Fiction Award. Her most recent book, My Mother and the Hungarians and other small fictions (CUP) was launched at the Christchurch WORD festival in August 2016. She currently teaches at the Hagley Writers’ Institute in Christchurch. 

Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa) will take up the Māori Writer’s Residency to work on the final draft of a new novel for adults Kurangaituku which retells the story of Hatupatu from the bird woman’s point of view. Whiti holds a Masters in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) from the International Institute of Modern Letters. She is the author of two novels: The Graphologist’s Apprentice and the award-winning YA novel Bugs. In 2012, Whiti was the recipient of the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. Her play Rewena, written during her residency at the Michael King Writers Centre in 2012, has been performed nationally and was published in the anthology Here/Now in 2015.  

Anthony Byrt is a regular writer for Metro, a contributing editor to Paperboy, and the New Zealand correspondent for Artforum International. In 2013 he was Critical Studies Fellow at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, and in 2015 was New Zealand's Reviewer of the Year at the Canon Media Awards. His first book, This Model World: Travels to the Edge of Contemporary Art, was published by Auckland University Press in 2016. Anthony has been awarded the eight-week Spring Residency to work on his latest project; a look at the lives of Barrie Bates (Billy Apple), Ann Quin, David Hockney and the remaking of British art.

The Early Summer Residency has been awarded to Anna Jackson. She has written and edited a number of academic books on topics ranging from Gothic children's fiction to verse biography in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and has published six collections of poetry with Auckland University Press. Anna will hold the eight-week residency to develop a collection of poetry that revisits the pastoral genre.  

All of the residencies are available thanks to support from Creative New Zealand.  

The Michael King Writers’ Centre thanks all applicants and wish Frankie, Whiti, Anthony and Anna the best of luck with their work.