The dear old Surrey Hotel writers residency is back, with twice the prize money and twice the length of stay\u2014and the choice of preferring to stay in the Nelson paradise of M\u0101pua.<\/p>\n
To mark the 10th anniversary of New Zealand\u2019s strangest and most alluring writers residency, patron Dick Frizzell has doubled the prize money to $10,000, Auckland hotel The Surrey has doubled the stay to two weeks, and boutique cottage accommodation in M\u0101pua has got in on the act.<\/p>\n
There are two first prizes. One winner will shack up for 14 nights at the amazing Surrey Hotel in Grey Lynn, and another winner will swan around for seven nights at the Apple Pickers Cottage in M\u0101pua. Each winner will pocket $3000. Second prize at each venue will receive five nights accommodation and $1500. Third prize at each venue will receive three nights accommodation and $500. Results will be announced live on Jesse Mulligan\u2019s afternoon show on Radio New Zealand, as per tradition. The award began in 2016 and is in exclusive association with Newsroom, which administers it.<\/p>\n
Entries are open right now, this second, and close soon, very soon\u2014there are two kinds of people in literature, the quick and the dead. The dead are ineligible to win. They would just lie around all day. Everyone else will be considered for the chance to win good money and a unique experience to work on their masterpiece in either Grey Lynn, Auckland, or on the shores of the Waimea Inlet, M\u0101pua.<\/p>\n
Everyone has heard of the Surrey. It\u2019s an independent hotel owned by a fellow who collects classic cars; he has decked out the Surrey in mock-Tudor style, which can feel very mocking indeed when you set foot in this eccentric, centrally located folly. The rooms are perfect for writing. Every winner over the past 10 years has struggled to say exactly why this is so but there is definitely something about it that inspires good work within its peaceful cocoon. 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.<\/p>\n
As for the Apple Pickers Cottage in M\u0101pua, I can vouch for it as amazing. Sir has stayed there several times over the years. It\u2019s on the pretty grounds of a former fruit orchard. The cottages were built for apple pickers in the 1950s. It backs onto an estuary and so your neighbours are white-faced herons, kingishers and godwits feeding on the tide. There are kayaks available\u2014I know every bend of the inlet. The whole place is a total knock-out, as quiet as the grave without any spookiness, and close to the seaside township of M\u0101pua, which is also a total knock-out. On arrival, winners of the award will receive a breakfast box (eggs, fancy bread, things like that) and then be left to think, to dream, to cook (the kitchens are fully equipped), and, hopefully, no pressure, to do the one thing they were born to do: write.<\/p>\n
Winners must take up the Surrey residency before Easter, and the M\u0101pua 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. Full details of each establishment are available online at Apple Pickers <\/a>and The Surrey.<\/a><\/p>\n Many past winners include celebrated authors. But other previous winners and finalists have also included complete nobodies, nascent talents, gifted but unpublished wannabes; there is room at the inn of the Surrey and M\u0101pua residencies for dreamers as well as established writers. No age limit. No letters of support. It\u2019s all about the work.<\/p>\n There are caveats. Entrants must have had something published somewhere, in print or online. It\u2019s open to novelists, short story writers, poets, and writers working in nonfiction\u2014but it\u2019s for writers of books, and books only for adults, meaning no screenplay writers, no playwrights, no comics illustrators, no YA or children\u2019s authors. It\u2019s all about a book intended for grown-ups.<\/p>\n There were 141 entries in 2025. Last year there were 143. This year\u2019s judging panel of four include literary figures of various repute in Melbourne, Los Angeles, Norwich, and Hamilton.<\/p>\n The loot will only be transferred when the winners actually arrive at either the Surrey Hotel and Apple Pickers\u2019 Cottages. Don\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n