Writers at The Centre
Visiting Writers
Writers are able to stay at the centre for short-term visits while they carry out research or visit Auckland. Recent short-term residents have included:
Tracy Farr
Born in Melbourne, the daughter of a record librarian and a TV star, Tracy Farr grew up on the other side of Australia, in Perth. After five years in Canada in the early 1990s, she’s been living and writing in New Zealand since 1996. Her short fiction has been published in New Zealand and Australia in anthologies, literary journals and popular magazines, been broadcast on Radio New Zealand, and been commended and shortlisted for awards in Australia and New Zealand. She lives in Wellington, and when she’s not writing fiction she works as a scientist.
Tracy stayed at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in September 2009, working towards completing her first novel. She writes:
“I started the novel in 2008, when I was Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre in the hills above Perth. Life got very busy in the interim though – as it always does – and I only ever seemed to peck away at the novel, not to spend the concentrated time I needed to really pin it down and complete it. I knew that I needed time in retreat from distractions to get the novel back on track."
“The front bedroom here is a perfect writing retreat. I watch the world go by outside, while I sit inside and focus in on my work. Half way through my eleven days at Michael King Writers’ Centre, I’ve pulled the manuscript into shape, hooked its different sections together, and I’m well on the way to filling the gaps I need to fill to complete it. I’m delighted – and a little astonished – at how concentrated my work has been here at the Writers’ Centre.”
Tracy blogs (very intermittently) about writing at http://hissingswan.blogspot.com/
Barry Brickell
Artist, potter, conservationist and railway enthusiast, Barry Brickell, is a visiting writer at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in June and July 2009. Barry lived in Devonport as a child and has returned to his old haunt to work on his autobiography.
Barry has devoted more than 30 years to establishing the Driving Creek Railway and Potteries in Coromandel Town. There he has built New Zealand’s only narrow-gauge mountain raily with magnificent engineering, unique art features and replanted native kauri forest. Barry writes:
"My introduction to contemporary art came through near neighbour Keith Patterson followed by my contemporary Hamish Keith and his associates at the Auckland Art Gallery in the mid to late 1950s. I attended Colin McCahon's evening classes in 1959……Writing has become an essential dimension and I now need to pursue it with as much energy as I had earlier put into more physical pursuits. I am very grateful to the Michael King Writers' Centre for giving me a special opportunity to pursue my work which otherwise could have resulted in yet more put-offs. Any result of my residency needs to acknowledge the great range of acquaintances and friends who have contributed to a very rich life in every sense of this word. I yearn to pass on my inner joie de vivre, warts and all."
-- Barry Brickell, Coromandel, April 2009.
Wendyl Nissen
Wendyl Nissen is a journalist working across newspapers, magazines, television and radio in Auckland. She is the author of Bitch and Famous (Penguin), a memoir of her time editing women's magazines and wrangling celebrities published in 2008, Domestic Goddess on a Budget (Penguin) a guide to making your own cleaning and beauty products as well as tips for saving money published in May 2009 and has just completed her first novel a romantic thriller called The Road from Midnight. She is married to writer Paul Little, they have five children, a granddaughter, three cats, one dog and three laying chickens.
Wendyl's Rave
I came to the Michael King Centre a desperate woman. I had spent two years attempting to write my first novel The Road from Midnight and had escaped to all sorts of places including my old caravan by the beach, a friend's bach on Waiheke, and rather excessively two weeks in Venice. (Some of the novel is set in Venice). My publisher was losing her patience and I just needed to buckle down and get it finished. I was initially concerned that the centre might be one of those places only serious writers who had studied under Bill Manhire could use but was immediately encouraged and welcomed by the administrator Karren Beanland. From the first day of my two weeks in the front room I found the peace and quiet, the wonderful views and facilities just what I needed and soon I was bashing out 3500 to 4000 words a day. Good words too. Uninterrupted and allowed to flow into sentences. It has been the most productive writing session I have ever experienced and I encourage it to anyone with a novel or any writing project sitting on their shoulder. Many thanks to Karren and Tania.
Jill Marshall
UK-born Jill Marshall is best known as the author of the Jane Blonde spy series for children published by Macmillan Publishing. Jane Blonde books are now sold in the UK, Australasia, France, Italy, Poland and Hungary. One of the series was chosen as one of nine special books for the prestigious World Book Day in the UK. Jane Blonde The Perfect Spylet reached the top ten in the UK best sellers lists when it was selling 12,000 copies a week.
Jill has also recently had a 'hen lit' novel called The Two Miss Parsons published with Penguin NZ which is about to optioned for movie rights, and has more adult fiction, a new children's series, and a children's picture book coming out next year.
Jill has used the Michael King Writers' Centre as a workspace several times. When not writing herself, she assists other writers through her consultancy Write Good Stuff. Write Good Stuff has sponsored its own Children's Writers Residency at the Michael King Writers' Centre in 2008, helping two children's authors to have time and space to work.
Sue Perkins
Sue Perkins spent six days at the house in May 2008. She lives on a lifestyle block north of Blenheim.
Perseverance paid off when Sue's first novel Three Hearts was published in May 2007. This was followed by publication of her first fantasy novel Sky Castles Trilogy – Blue & Silver in January 2008. The second novel Russet & Gold will be released in August 2008. Whilst at the house, Sue worked on the last novel of the trilogy Ebony & Ivory. Sue, a member of the New Zealand Society of Authors, found the house to be exactly the surroundings she needed for writing. A comfortable room with everything to hand, and none of the interruptions one gets with daily life at home.
"Blue & Silver: Sky Castles Book 1" Now Available
"Whiskey Shots Volume 16" Now Available
"Recipe for Love" Now Available
"Russet & Gold: Sky Castles Book 2" release date August 2008 by Whiskey Creek Press
www.whiskeycreekpress.com
www.sueperkinsauthor.com
http://sueperkinsauthor.blogspot.com
Paula Morris
Paula Morris is a novelist and short story writer of English and Maori descent, originally from west Auckland. For almost a decade she worked in the record business in London and New York. She now lives in New Orleans and teaches creative writing at the University of Tulane.
Her first novel, Queen of Beauty, won best first work of fiction at the 2003 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Hibiscus Coast, a literary thriller set in Auckland and Shanghai, was published in 2005 and has been optioned for film. Her third novel, Trendy But Casual, was recently published by Penguin New Zealand.
She is also the director of the Scudder Road Circus and Literary Journal.
Morris stayed at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in June 2007. She
wrote about her time at the house and took some excellent photos, which
are included on her blogsite, trendybutcasual.
Paula's photos and comments about the Centre::
Last day in Devonport
last night at the Centre
Devonport ferry views
Views from the Signalman's House
Joan Rosier-Jones
Joan Rosier-Jones stayed at the house in July this year as a short-term visitor. She is from Wanganui.
Her first novel, Cast Two Shadows, was published in 1986. A tutor of creative writing, she has written two how-to-write books. So You want to Write is a guide to creative writing and Writing Your Family History takes the reader through the process of turning their family stories and memoirs into readable form. Her novel, Voyagers, was based on her own family history, drawing on the stories that her parents told her as a child. Her other novels are Canterbury Tales (1990), Mother Tongue, (1996), and Yes (2000). Joan is an active member of the New Zealand Society of Authors. She said of her time at the Michael King Centre, 'It was pure bliss - a comfortable room of one's own with all mod.cons and the freedom to write and write and write.'
If you would like to apply to stay at the Michael King Writers’ Centre, please contact:
The Administrator
The Michael King Writers’ Centre
PO Box 32-629
Devonport
North Shore City 0744
Phone/fax 09 445 8451
Send email to the Adminstrator