Writer in Residence
The Writer in Residence is an annual appointment to foster New Zealand writing, with support from Creative New Zealand.
Applications for the 2027 position will open in mid-2026. This is a full-year position.
About the residency
The Writer in Residence appointment is jointly funded by Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington and Creative New Zealand and housed at the University's International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML). It has been created to foster New Zealand writing by providing the appointee with the opportunity to write full-time within an academic environment for the period of tenure.
Other residencies
We also offer a three-month Emerging Pasifika Writer in Residency and a three-month Emerging Māori Writer's Residency, both funded by Creative New Zealand.
Current Writer in Residence—Anna Smaill
An acclaimed novelist, Anna began her publishing career with a volume of poetry, The Violinist in Spring, which was released in 2005 by Te Herenga Waka University Press. Her first novel The Chimes won the prestigious award for Best Novel at the 2016 World Fantasy Awards. It was also longlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into four languages. Her second novel Bird Life was published in 2023 in the US, UK, and Australia to excellent reviews, with The Times (UK) calling it 'a deeply affecting novel [that] transcend[s] cultural barriers while reaching through them to the essentially human'. Locally, it was longlisted for the Ockham Book Awards.
In 2001, Anna completed an MA in Creative Writing at the IIML. She subsequently lived and studied overseas, receiving a PhD in English Literature from University College, University of London. She has worked as an academic and as a senior communications advisor. Most recently she was the team leader of Te Papa's English writing team. Anna is also an accomplished literary critic, having published articles on writers such as Janet Frame and Bill Manhire.
While holding the 2025 residency, Anna will work on a novel tentatively titled The Blazing, which she describes as 'part archival thriller, part coming-of-age story'. Set in both the US and UK, the novel will be 'an examination of the value and worth of art and history in the midst of cultural collapse, and will explore ideas of provenance and whakapapa. In testing how individual stories can ripple outward to effect historical change, it will follow a path back to Aotearoa New Zealand,' said Anna.
(Photo credit: Ebony Lamb Photographer)
- Te Herenga Waka University Press author profile
- Shifting Currents (Australian Book Review, August 2021)
2026 Writer in Residence—Tusiata Avia
Tusiata has received many significant awards including the 2013 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award, a 2023 Te Herenga Waka Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2024 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement.
In 2020 she was an Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate, and was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts. In 2024, Tusiata received a Creative New Zealand Senior Pacific Artists Award.
Tusiata’s poetry collections include Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004, also staged as a theatre show), Bloodclot (2009), the Ockham-shortlisted Fale Aitu | Spirit House (2016), the Ockham-award-winning The Savage Coloniser Book (2020, also staged as The Savage Coloniser Show), and Big Fat Brown Bitch (2023). Her new book, Giving Birth to My Father, will be published on 6 November 2025.
While holding the residency, Tusiata will work on a new collection of poems provisionally titled How to Make a Terrorist. She says the collection will move from the personal to the global, “from inside an MRI machine scanning my brain, to Christchurch five years after the mosque shooting . . . to Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clark tearing up the Treaty Principles Bill in parliament.”
Previous writers in residence
Copyright for the images below belongs to Robert Cross.
