Verb Wellington Writer’s Residency With Katherine Mansfield House & Garden

We’re thrilled to once again be offering this residency opportunity. Applications from writers who live in Aotearoa, working on any of the following forms are welcomed: short stories, the novel, poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir.

Dates: The residency takes place Monday 25 August - Sunday 14 September.

Where: In Te Whanganui a Tara.

Stipend: $1,300 per week (gst included).

Travel: Travel is arranged by the recipient.

Accommodation: Studio apartment accommodation is provided at a nearby Airbnb. It is a 5mins walk to Katherine Mansfield House & Garden.

Where you will write: From Monday to Friday during each of the three weeks, you will have use of a small, private office space with access to Wi-fi and basic kitchen facilities at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden. More information is below.

During the residency: Verb will provide opportunities for the resident to meet with local writers. You will be required to do one public event at the end of the residency conversation, and we also ask you to complete a short feedback form at the conclusion of the residency.

Accessibility: Katherine Mansfield House & Garden is a modestly-sized historic house with steps at the entry, a narrow hallway leading to the residency space, and no accessible bathroom. Unfortunately, this means this residency is not suitable for wheelchair users. Similarly, the accommodation is up a short incline and accessed by steps. Please let us know if you have other accessibility needs and would like to know if this residency is suitable for you.

Further detail on the residency space

The residency space is a small, downstairs office in Katherine Mansfield House & Garden with lots of natural light and a heating system. It contains a desk, chair, telephone for local or national calls, power sockets and Wifi. You will need to bring your own laptop or other writing material. This office space is only suitable for one occupant.

The house has basic kitchen and bathroom facilities and is close to a number of cafés. On weekdays, the house is open to the public from 10am-4pm (excluding Mondays). The residency space is a private office space so you will not be directly disturbed by visitors, but the house can be a busy place so you will likely hear people coming and going. There is a separate staff office upstairs that is in use Monday to Friday.

You will be welcome to leave items in the residency space overnight during the week (the house is alarmed and monitored), but not over the weekend as the space will be used by weekend staff. The house is on a quiet residential street, but there is some road noise from the nearby motorway.

The Airbnb studio has a kitchen equipped with utensils, a fridge, hobs for cooking on and a microwave. The kitchen does not have an oven, however, there is an oven at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden that you are welcome to use.

Further information: Please check back on 28 April when the residency application form will be added to this page. If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to email us.

Meet our 2024 Verb Wellington Writer’s Resident with Katherine Mansfield House & Garden!

It is our pleasure to announce Joy Holley has been selected as the 2024 Verb Wellington Writer in Residence at Katherine Mansfield House & Garden.

Joy Holley lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Her debut collection of short fiction Dream Girl was published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in 2023. She completed her MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2020, and was a guest curator for Verb Wellington in 2021. Earlier this year, she was a resident at the Michael King Writers Centre. Her writing can be found in journals and anthologies in Aotearoa and overseas, including Newsroom, The Spinoff and Starling.

During the residency, Joy will be working on a first draft of her second book; a Gothic novel about a group of young, queer women living in a haunted flat in Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Photo by Ebony Lamb.

About the Verb Wellington Writer’s Residency

Verb Wellington and Katherine Mansfield House & Garden have come together to offer an opportunity to spend time in one of the world’s most vibrant literary cities to focus on your writing. We are very grateful to Professor John Ormiston ONZM who is a patron of this residency in memory of his wife, the late Professor Diana (Dinny) Lennon ONZM (1949-2018).

Professor Diana (Dinny) Lennon had a strong connection to Wellington, where she attended Samuel Marsden Collegiate. Dinny was Professor of Population Child and Youth Health in the Department of Paediatrics: Child and Youth Health at the University of Auckland, a world class researcher, an inspiring teacher and mentor, and a superb clinician. She was passionate about children, especially those without a fair opportunity for health, particularly Māori and Pacific children. Her determination and energy to make things better for children was limitless and led to advances in clinical care, national policy change, vaccine development and rheumatic fever programmes that are some of her greatest achievements. Among her many honours, Dinny was named Plunket Woman of the Year in 1992 and the Dame Joan Metge Medal of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2008. Dinny was a life-long admirer of Katherine Mansfield.

About Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield is New Zealand’s most internationally famous author. She was a writer of short stories, poetry, letters, journals and reviews, and changed the way the short story was written in the English language. She was a rebel and a modernist who lived her short life of 34 years to the full. Her life spanned a time when gender roles for women underwent a radical change. Read more about Katherine here.

About Verb Wellington
Verb Wellington is an organisation dedicated to championing the work of writers and readers. We create events and festivals that bring writers and readers together over books, ideas and stories. We support the work of writing through residencies and publishing. Verb Wellington was started by passionate reader Claire Mabey, and musician and creative producer, Andrew Laking.

History of the Verb Writers Residency:
In 2020, Verb Wellington and Katherine Mansfield House & Garden came together to offer an opportunity to a writer to spend time in one of the world’s most vibrant literary cities to focus on their work. Since then, five writers have each enjoyed a dedicated writing space at Katherine Mansfield’s birthplace in Thorndon, with accommodation provided close by.

Previous Residents

Joy Holley

2024 Resident

Joy Holley lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Her debut collection of short fiction Dream Girl was published by Te Herenga Waka University Press in 2023. She completed her MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2020, was a guest curator for Verb Wellington in 2021, and in 2024, was a resident at the Michael King Writers Centre. Her writing can be found in journals and anthologies in Aotearoa and overseas, including Newsroom, The Spinoff and Starling. During the residency, Joy worked on a first draft of her second book; a Gothic novel about a group of young, queer women living in a haunted flat in Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Kiran Dass

2023 Resident

Writer and critic Kiran Dass has written about books, music and culture for a variety of publications including NZ Herald, NZ Listener, The Guardian, The Wire, North & South, Metro, The Spinoff, RNZ, Sunday magazine, Sunday Star-Times, Landfall, Pantograph Punch and Vice. In 2020 she was awarded a Michael King Writers Centre Residency. Kiran was a convening judge of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, reviews books regularly on RNZ’s Nine to Noon, and is Programme Lead for WORD Christchurch.

Jack Remiel Cottrell

2022 Resident
Jack Remiel Cottrell is an itinerant flash fiction and short story writer with a sideline as a volunteer rugby referee. His debut flash fiction collection Ten Acceptable Acts of Arson and other very short stories was published by Canterbury University Press in 2021, and won the 2020 Wallace Foundation Award for best manuscript.
Jack has had work published in the Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy, The New Zealand Listener, North & South, Takahe Magazine, and Ko Aotearoa Tatou – We Are New Zealand. He was a runner up in the Bath Flash Fiction Award and has been shortlisted for a Sir Julius Vogel Award in 2020 and 2022.

Iona Winter

2021 Resident

Iona Winter (Waitaha/Kāti Māmoe/Kāi Tahu/Pākehā) lives in Koputai, Port Chalmers. Her hybrid work is widely published and anthologised in literary journals internationally. Iona creates work to be performed, relishing cross-modality collaboration, and holds a Master of Creative Writing. She has authored three collections, Gaps in the Light (2021), Te Hau Kāika (2019), and then the wind came (2018). Skilled at giving voice to difficult topics, she often draws on her deep connection to land, place and whenua.

Himali McInnes

2020 Resident

Himali McInnes is a family doctor who works in a busy Auckland practice and in the prison system. She enjoys writing short stories, essays, articles, flash fiction and mediocre poetry. She has been published locally and internationally, and has either won or been short-listed in several writing competitions. She is an NZSA Mentorship recipient for 2020. Himali is also a maker of messes - through gardening, beekeeping, cooking and chicken farming. She was humbled and so grateful to be a Verb Wellington Residency recipient, as she loves Wellington (best op shops ever). She loved her time as the 2020 Verb Wellington Residency recipient and one of the stories she completed during the Residency can be found here.