Miro is a filmmaker, filmmaking teacher and a poet whose memoir of a counterculture New Zealand adolescence, In the Time of the Manaroans (Victoria Univeristy Press, 2020) has received critical rave reviews. As a writer-director she has made the feature films Being Venice (2012)—which enjoyed a bout

Jordan Hamel is a Pōneke-based writer, poet and performer. He grew up in Timaru on a healthy diet of Catholicism and toxic masculinity.He was the 2018 New Zealand Poetry Slam champion and represented Aotearoa at the World Poetry Slam Champs in the USA. He is the co-editor of everyone’s favourite l

Zarah is a writer from Auckland. She is the author of Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life (Giramondo Publishing, 2021) and Autobiography of a Marguerite (Hue & Cry Press, 2014). Links to her work can be found online at zarahbm.comDuring her residency Zarah is going to be working on a series of prose poem

Helen is a widely published children’s and young adult author, spoken word poet and award-winning playwright. She has written an impressive collection of work for everyone from preschoolers to adult readers. Spanning a variety of subjects, Helen’s writing doesn’t shy away from the gritty parts of li

Pip is a Wellington writer, editor and oral historian who specialises in creative non-fiction. Her memoir Song for Rosaleen, about caring for her mother when she got dementia, was long-listed for the 2019 Ockham NZ Book Awards. Pip’s other books include Trust: A True Story of Women and Gangs, which

The first writer to have the timing of her residency affected by the pandemic; Kiran reviews books regularly on RNZ and her writing has appeared in NZ Herald, NZ Listener, RNZ, The Spinoff, Pantograph Punch, Sunday magazine, Sunday Star-Times, Landfall and The Wire (UK). She has chaired sessions at

Tracy is a Wellington writer who used to be a scientist. Her debut novel, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, was long- and shortlisted for three prestigious literary awards in Australia, and her second novel, The Hope Fault, was one of NZ Listener’s 100 Best Books of 2017. Both novels were published

We have welcomed our 13th writer-in-residence. Octavia  is a Cambridge based writer with a PhD in science communication. She likes using speculative fiction to talk about science in new and interesting ways – her sample writing for the Michael King residency was a short story about rebuilding scient

Kyle is one of New Zealand’s most eclectic and prolific writers. From multi-layered picture books (Old-Hu-hu; Hill & Hole) to laugh-out-loud junior fiction series (Dinosaur Rescue; Dragon Knight), her titles have been translated into eighteen languages and won numerous awards including Children’s Bo

Kate graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from VUW in 2000.  Her MA project was her first novel, Breakwater.  Kate has also published short fiction, poetry and reviews for a variety of journals and publications including as Takahē, Landfall, Sport, The Penguin Book of the Contemporary New Zealan

Our tenth writer-in-residence for the year, Ingrid, is working on a collection of interconnected short stories from women’s lives over a two-hundred-year period. Some of the stories are based on historical lives, others on purely fictional characters, but all are anchored in a particular historical

Jared is an archivist, historian and writer based in Wellington. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Overland, History Workshop Journal, The Spinoff, Newsroom and other publications, while his recent book Dead Letters (Otago University Press, 2019) won the Bert Roth Award for Labour History and w

Nathan is an award-winning writer, theatre-maker and performance poet based in Ōtautahi. His work largely focuses on the slipperiness of identity and the politics of desire.As a playwright, Nathan won the Playmarket b425 award two years in a row (2015 and 2016), and has been shortlisted for the AD

Steph is an award-winning writer from Taranaki, New Zealand (Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama, Te Ati Awa).She spent fifteen years writing radio advertising before deciding to branch out and write pieces that were longer than thirty seconds.She loves writing speculative fiction stories for children and

Our sixth writer-in-residence for the year; Gina, is of Fijian, Scottish and Welsh descent.  She is the author of Black Ice Matter, which won Best First Book of Fiction at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.  Her fiction was anthologised in Black Marks on the White Page, and Home: New Writing.

We welcomed Rachael not only as our final writer-in-residence for 2020 but also, by wonderful coincidence as the 100th writer to take up a residency at MKWC.Rachael is an award-winning author with three novels under her belt: The Sound of Butterflies, which was published internationally and  trans

From Queenstown, Jane is the author of the Lily Max children’s trilogy, published by Luncheon Sausage books. “Lily Max: Satin, Scissors, Frock” (2015) was a finalist in the NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and received a Storylines Notable Book Award. “Lily Max: Slope, Style, Fashion” (

We have welcomed Lana as our fourth writer-in-residence for the year. Lana is an editor, critic and author based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Since 2012 she has published extensively on New Zealand and art in local and international publications. In 2018 Lana published her debut book False Divides (Bridget W

Anna has written several books of poetry, most recently Pasture and Flock: New and Selected Poems, and also writes occasional fiction and academic books.  She lives in Wellington and lectures at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington.Anna’s residency project is a novella, a sequel of so

Our second writer-in-residence for the year Emma (Kāi Tahu), is a Taranaki based writer whose work has previously appeared in Sport, Newsroom, Hue and Cry, Takahe, Ika 4, Ora Nui and Turbine.In 2013 she completed an MA with Distinction at the IIML. In 2020 she was awarded third place in the RH Mor