Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust Announces Residencies For 2025–26

Scoop

7 hours ago

Twelve writers have been awarded residencies for late 2025 and early 2026 at the historic cottage in Ōtepoti Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature.
The Robert Lord Writers Cottage Trust is delighted to announce that residencies for 2025–26 have been awarded to Ella Borrie, Gina Butson, Casey Carsel, Chye-Ling Huang (with Geoff Bonning), Joshua Iosefo, Anna Jackson, Helen Varley Jamieson, Jack McGee, Hazel Phillips, Nick Tipa and Janine Williams.
Ella Borrie is a landscape poet who grew up in Cromwell, Central Otago, and is currently living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. During her residency she will be working on a collection of poetry, exploring issues of grief, old age, parenthood and the briefness of seasons.
North Shore-based writer Gina Butson will work on her second novel, an environmental thriller set in Antarctica. Her first book, The Stars are a Million Glittering Worlds, will be published by Allen & Unwin in July 2025.
Casey Carsel is an Aotearoa-born Jewish artist and writer. They will progress and revise their short story collection Her Big Responsibilities, an experimental series of texts loosely woven around a girl whose elderly grandfather has left New Zealand to return to his childhood home in Ukraine.
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland writer and director Chye-Ling Huang makes theatre, film and podcasts, and co-founded Proudly Asian Theatre Company in 2013. With scientist and storyteller Geoff Bonning, she will be working on New Antarctica, a political climate play set in Dunedin and involving countries connected by the Southern Ocean.
The Auckland Pride Praise the Lord playwright in residence for 2025 is Joshua Iosefo (Mush). The year-long residency, supported by Auckland Pride, Auckland Theatre Company and SameSame But Different, consists of a series of development and writing opportunities for a queer playwright. Joshua will be developing their musical, NUMB, across the year, and will spend two weeks at the Cottage this spring revising and redrafting the work.
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington-based poet and academic Anna Jackson will work on a new collection with the provisional title Tell Me About It, a series of poetry sequences looking at questions of identity, translation, time, gender and the relation between all these things.
Munich-based, Dunedin-born digital media artist, writer and theatre maker Helen Varley Jamieson will work on her book Devising with Distance, drawing on her experience in creating cyberformance (live online performance) to provide ideas, inspiration and professional development for those interested in remote artistic collaboration.
Jack McGee is a playwright and producer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. He will be working on a full-length play about a middle-aged woman who gets off a cruise ship and stays in Ōtepoti Dunedin, inserting herself into the life of her estranged childhood best friend.
Ruapehu-based author Hazel Phillips will work on Great Hearts, a narrative history of early women climbers and adventurers of Aoraki Mount Cook, bringing together the stories of groundbreaking mountaineering women in a compelling and creative way.
The NZYWF 2025 Young Writer in Residence is Ōtepoti-based writer and performer Nick Tipa (Kāi Tahu). Nick's debut solo play Babyface was awarded the UNESCO City of Literature Beyond Words award at the 2025 Dunedin Fringe Festival. He will take up a two-week residency for this year's New Zealand Young Writers Festival.
Whangarei-based author Janine Williams was the inaugural recipient of the Lynley Dodd Children's Writers Award in 2024. She will be working on Danger at Kohatu House, the third book in her series of middle-grade fantasy novels The Secret Staircase.
Tāmaki Makaurau playwright Nuanzhi Zheng will be developing a multimedia theatre piece, Best Head Girl. A satirical dramedy investigating self-surveillance and voyeurism, it centres around a group of former Head Girls who stumble upon a secret society of Auckland's former Head Girls.
Applications will open in August for the University Book Shop (Otago) 2026 Summer Writer in Residence. This six-week residency for an emerging writer runs from early January to mid-February. As well as a stipend, the University Book Shop provides administrative support – and staff discount on books too!
Playwright Robert Lord (1945–1992) bought his cottage in Titan St, Dunedin, after taking up the 1987 Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. Located near the university and the town centre, the worker's cottage has three furnished rooms and a courtyard garden. It has been run as a rent-free residency for writers since 2003.