Applications For Berlin Writers’ Residency Sought

Creative New Zealand Seeks Applications To Its Berlin Writers’ Residency

Creative New Zealand is calling for applications to its 2002 Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers’ Residency, which offers a New Zealand writer the opportunity to live and write in Berlin for a period of nine months.

Worth approximately $60,000, the residency covers the rental costs of the apartment in the centre of Berlin. It also includes a stipend of NZ$3000 a month and a return airfare from New Zealand to Germany.

This is the third year that Creative New Zealand has offered the residency. Previous recipients are Christchurch poet and novelist Sarah Quigley and Auckland novelist Tina Shaw.

Shaw, whose time in Berlin is coming to an end, has been working on a new novel. Set in the 1930s, one of its characters has spent his formative years in Berlin.

“My time in Berlin has been tremendously stimulating,” Tina Shaw says. “To be living here in the heart of Europe is expanding and changing my writing, both because of the things I am seeing - all the small details I would never have known about by not being here – and the people I’m meeting from all over the world. It’s an experience I suspect will always stay with me.”

Murray Shaw, Chair of the Arts Board of Creative New Zealand, says the residency is a wonderful opportunity for New Zealand writers to live in a cultural hub of Europe and devote themselves to writing over a sustained period of time.

“Arts Board investment in this residency is considerable but we believe the benefits to New Zealand writers and writing are wide-ranging,” he says. “It’s an opportunity for New Zealand writers to spend time outside their own country, and look at both their work and the world from a fresh perspective.”

As well as supporting other international residencies for artists, the Arts Board currently co-funds five writer-in-residence programmes at New Zealand universities, plus a children’s writer-in-residence programme at the Dunedin College of Education.

The residency guidelines and application form can be downloaded from Creative New Zealand’s website (www.creativenz.govt.nz) or by contacting Creative New Zealand (04-473 0880).

Applications close on Friday, 31 May. The 2002 recipient will be chosen by a selection committee, appointed by Creative New Zealand.

ends

© Scoop Media