Vivienne Plumb graduated from Victoria Universityof Wellington, with a B.A. in English and Art History (1997) and an M.A. in Creative Writing (2001). She then completed a doctoral thesis at the University of Wollongong, Australia (2013). Her thesis focuses on time, and public and personal space in r

Roger Horrocks was founder and head of the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at Auckland University, the largest department of its kind in New Zealand, and is Emeritus Professor. Ten years ago he retired early to write full time. He has written on many aspects of film, television, lit

Rochelle Bright is an exciting voice in New Zealand theatre. She works in crossover drama, which blurs the boundaries between plays, music, cabaret and opera. She has written lyrics, librettos, play and film scripts, music and even circus with Gothenburg band Next Stop: Horizon.Rochelle wrote play

Philip Braithwaite has been writing plays since 1999. In 2000 he won the New Zealand Young Playwrights’ Award. Amongst his other credits are the BBC World Service/British Council International Radio Playwriting Award 2001, and the Adam NZ Play Award 2013, for his play The Mercy Clause.Phil’s work

Mere Whaanga is a writer, illustrator, historian and academic. She is of Ngāti Rongomaiwahine and Ngāti Kahungunu descent. Raised on an isolated sheep station near Gisborne, she was inspired by her father’s dedication to the land and his love of Māori history and mythology.She has written several

Kelly Ana Morey has written four novels and three social histories, and a childhood memoir, as well as poems, short stories, criticism and journalism.Born of Pakeha and Ngati Kuri descent in New Zealand’s Far North in 1968, she had a peripatetic childhood in Papua New Guinea, which she has describ

Anne Kennedy, who holds the 2014 University of Auckland residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre, is a poet, fiction writer and scriptwriter. She holds the residency to work on a new novel.Her previous novel The Last Days of the National Costume, published by Allen & Unwin in 2013, reached nu

Alice Miller, who is a poet, fiction writer, essayist and playwright, has been awarded the Summer Residency 2014 to work on her new novel called The Tower. It is about “poetry, beauty and the occult”, interweaving two stories, one about a contemporary New Zealand would-be opera writer and the other

Judith Bryers Holloway has Ngapuhi, French, Norwegian and Irish/English ancestry, was brought up in King Country and Whanganui. She has lived most of adult life in Wellington but now lives in Levin.Judith trained as a teacher and has taught, off and on, all age groups from 5 year-olds to polytech

Eleanor Catton, winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize for Literature, held the 2012 University of Auckland Residency at the Michael King Writers’ Centre. She worked on the final draft of her winning novel The Luminaries during her residency.This is what she wrote about her experience at the centre:

Sarah Laing, from Auckland, will use her residency to complete her latest work, a novel which explores aspects of cultural identity. Titled Dead People’s Music, it will be published by Random House in April 2009.Sarah Laing, from Mt Albert, has written short stories, taken part in spoken word perf

Professor Richard Corballis from Palmerston North,  researched and wrote a major biography of leading New Zealand playwright, Bruce Mason while in residence at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in the second half of 2008.Professor Corballis, who is Professor of English in the School of English and

Chris Price plans to complete a new collection of poems, The Blind Singer, and lay the groundwork for another major project – a full-length work of creative non-fiction that will blend biography, travel, memoir, history and essay. Death’s Jest-Book will re-imagine the life of the eccentric English p

Margaret Hayward was the 2007 resident at the Michael King Writers’ Centre. During her period in residence, she worked on her book on Prime Ministerial leadership in New Zealand, and carried out research for other projects. From Otaki, she is the writer of Diary of the Kirk Years, published in 1982,

Gerry Evans is the author of Where Giants Dwell (1999), Good Morning USA (2004) and Shipping Out (2006) and was the Resident for seven months in 2006. Born in west Wales, he settled in New Zealand in 1963. He spent 30 years as a seaman and 10 years as a waterside worker, and served on the executive

Geoff Chapple O.N.Z.M  was the first resident at the centre when it opened in 2005. His play Hatch, written at the house, was a major success at the AK07 Arts Festival and has toured New Zealand since.A noted journalist, Geoff has written six books of non-fiction, including 1981: The Tour and Rewi

Dunedin novelist, poet and memoirist, Dianne Brown wrote Here Comes Another Vital Moment while she was a Resident at the Centre for three months in 2005.Born in Auckland, Brown lives in Dunedin, where she writes books and reviews, assesses manuscripts, and teaches fiction writing at Aoraki Polytech