Close to 150 authors, dreamers, visionaries and complete nobodies have entered the 2026 iteration of New Zealand’s most exciting literary award. It’s a record number, which is absolutely no surprise considering the prize money is doubled and there are now two venues for writers to choose to stay and work on their masterpiece.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the Surrey Hotel writers residency award, staged by Newsroom, generous patrons Jude and Dick Frizzell have doubled the available loot to $10,000, and the charming hostess at the Apple Pickers Cottage in Māpua has made her boutique accommodation available.
The deadline is at midnight this Sunday, September 13. Already 146 entries have been sent in by well-known New Zealand authors of considerable repute, people no one has ever heard of, and other hopefuls. All are welcome.
There has been a significant change to the terms of the prizes since the 2026 residency was announced a few weeks ago. Initially the idea was for the Surrey winner to pocket $3000 and stay a fortnight. But two weeks cooped up in a hotel might be tantamount to madness and a bad case of The Shining. As such, two first prize winners will each win $1500 and seven nights at the Surrey. Second prize is five nights and $1200. Third prize is four nights and $800. As for Apple Pickers Cottage in Māpua, first prize is $3000 and seven nights. Second prize is $1500 and five nights. Third prize is $500 and four nights. Results will be announced live on Jesse Mulligan’s afternoon show on Radio New Zealand, as per tradition. The award began in 2016 and is in exclusive association with Newsroom, which administers it.
Writers need to eat. The Surrey will throw in a free breakfast and a Sunday roast, and the Apple Pickers will hand winners a breakfast box that should tie them over during their stay in paradise.
Judges from Melbourne, Los Angeles, Norwich, and Hamilton are right now poring over the entries. They came from Taryn, who wishes to work on Ngā Tini Ara o te Tamariki: A Complete History of Adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand. Mark wishes to work on From Rogernomics to Y2K: the rise of the independent Aotearoa arts scene (and how it took on the world) 1984-1999. In her covering letter, Sharni described her novel provisionally titled Exes of the Apocalypse: “Set on a remote off-grid high-country station in Te Waipounamu, this is the story of a woman forced to navigate living with all her exes at once, after they inexplicably turn up to stay as the world crumbles.”
There are very serious projects. Jane: “I have developed an original and radically alternative understanding of something that mystifies us all—the female hormonal design as it manifests through the 4M sequence of menarche, menstrual cycles, menopause and mature life.” Elisabeth’s novel sounds more fun: “The Cortinas were once a famous(ish) Hamilton band, all swagger, chemistry and promise—until they fell apart. Nearly twenty years later, Rod is drowning in tax debt, and Frankie runs a garage and hosts karaoke nights at the local RSA.”
Applicants are encouraged to send in a sample of their project. There was this brilliant couplet, from Bee:
I sleepwalk the backyard to find you, climb a ladder of your bones,
your hands chase me on coiled cords of rotary telephones
Stef’s opening line of her thriller: “I kill people for money. When you say it bluntly like that it sounds bad, but it’s the only work I’ve ever been any good at.”
Shannon gave a background of a memoir she wishes to write about her dear old Mum: “Twenty years after my mother died, I finally met her face to face in her unvarnished and unguarded outpourings in a clutch of green hardback Whitcombe’s Handy Diaries spanning 1956 to 1964. Incomplete in parts, but devastating in general. Nine months ago. I unpacked six diaries written by my mother, but not the mother I knew. They are shocking, compelling, sad and tragic. A woman I have long held in contempt, only to discover too late she was ill and confused and afraid and deeply disappointed in life.”
Mel’s covering letter included this memorable sentence: “When I was thirty-five, I moved to the Hauraki Gulf, began therapy and learned to freedive.”
Applicants must identify whether they wish to stay at Grey Lynn or Māpua. Easy to guess Heather’s choice: “I am working on a short story collection themed around a very odd museum in an even odder, but all too imminent, dystopian world and set in the Nelson/Tasman region.” Past winners are eligible to enter. Breton wishes to return to the Surrey Hotel, and mentioned in his covering letter: “This would be the first NZ novel to open with someone cleaning a fridge.”
Everyone has heard of The Surrey Hotel at 465 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn, Auckland. It’s decked out in mock-Tudor style, and the rooms are perfect for writing. Authors who have won residencies since 2016 include Becky Manawatu, Liv Sisson, Ashleigh Young, Naomi Arnold, Paula Morris, Colleen Maria Lenihan, Laurence Fearnley, and, in 2024, Dunedin author Breton Dukes, who put in valuable work on the book that became Party Boy, published in February by Te Herenga Waka University Press, which remains the best novel of the year by a long stretch.
The Apple Pickers Cottage at 43 Apple Valley East Road, Mahana, is set on the pretty grounds of a former fruit orchard. Its gorgeous little cottages were built for apple pickers in the 1950s. I have stayed there and chopped up firewood but only because this is one of my hobbies. Winners can just sit, write, sleep, dream, and confirm their genius.
Winners must take up the Surrey residency before Easter, and the Māpua residency is between May 1, 2027, and September 30, 2027. Rooms are subject to availability and can be worked out with the respective gracious hostesses, Mahara Lawson at the Surrey, and Elspeth Collier at the Apple Pickers Cottages.
The loot will only be transferred when the winners actually arrive at either the Surrey Hotel and Apple Pickers’ Cottages. Don’t even think about leaving before the term of your residency or you will have to return the money, be stripped of the prize, and thought of as someone of low character. The residencies are an awesome chance to be left alone to do good work.
Entries for the 2026 residency award are open until Sunday, September 13. They must be emailed to [email protected] with the subject line in screaming caps THE 2026 SURREY HOTEL AND MĀPUA WRITERS RESIDENCY AWARDS. Nominate the residency you prefer. Send in a brief covering letter outlining the project you have in mind, and it wouldn’t hurt to maybe attach a few pages of the work in progress. Word Doc only, don’t even think about Google Doc or PDF. Something about who you are would be useful. Previous winners are eligible. The issue of New Zealand residency is neither here nor there.
Good luck to all who apply; the clock ticks steadily towards the chimes of midnight, Sunday, September 13.
Full list of first-prize winners of the past iterations of the Surrey Hotel writers residency award:
2016, Kelly Dennett, who went on to publish The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Jane Furlong (Awa Press), winner of the Ngaio Marsh crime writing award for best book of nonfiction
2017, Serena Benson. Nothing seemed to come out of it and I never heard from her again
2018, Megan Dunn, who worked on a brilliant work of nonfiction, The Mermaid Chronicles (Penguin)
2019, Colleen Maria Lenihan, who worked on Kōhine (Huia), one of the best short story collections of the past 20 years
2020, Mia Gaudin. Nothing seemed to come out of it and I haven’t heard from her in years
2021, Talia Marshall, who was unable to experience the Surrey Hotel because of lockdown and that, but had the wherewithal to finish Whaea Blue (Te Herenga Waka University Press), one of the best books of 2024
2022, J Wiremu Kane. He’s good at winning residencies; last year, he was the Verb Wellington Writer in Residence With Katherine Mansfield House & Garden
2023, Emma Ling Sidnam, who worked on a collection of short stories. The last I heard of her was a couple of years ago. It was reported she was still working on a collection of short stories, as well as a novel, Shattered, which she described as a semi-psychological-thriller
2024, Paula Morris, who worked on a novel about three Māori living in Britain at the time of the Brexit vote
2025, Joanna Cho, who worked on a collection of poems and short stories
As follows, a list of finalists who stayed at the Surrey Hotel and worked on manuscripts that were later published: Liv Sisson (Butterflies and Moths of Aotearoa, set to be published by Penguin in November); Ashleigh Young (poetry collection How I Get Ready, Victoria University Press); John Summers (essay collection The Commercial Hotel, Victoria University Press); Naomi Arnold (astronomy book Southern Nights, HarperCollins); Claire Baylis (crime novel Dice, Allen & Unwin); Nick Ascroft (poetry collection The Stupefying, Te Herenga Waka University Press); Shilo Kino (YA novel The Porangi Boy, Huia); Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall (short story collection Tauhou, Te Herenga Waka University Press); Laurence Fearnley (literary novel At The Great Glacier Hotel, Penguin); and Becky Manawatu (literary novel Kataraina, Mākaro Press).