The dear old Surrey Hotel writers residency is back, with twice the prize money and twice the length of stay—and the choice of preferring to stay in the Nelson paradise of Māpua.
To mark the 10th anniversary of New Zealand’s 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 Māpua has got in on the act.
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 Māpua. 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’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.
Entries are open right now, this second, and close soon, very soon—there 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, Māpua.
Everyone has heard of the Surrey. It’s 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.
As for the Apple Pickers Cottage in Māpua, I can vouch for it as amazing. Sir has stayed there several times over the years. It’s 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—I 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 Māpua, 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.
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. Full details of each establishment are available online at Apple Pickers and The Surrey.
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 Māpua residencies for dreamers as well as established writers. No age limit. No letters of support. It’s all about the work.
There are caveats. Entrants must have had something published somewhere, in print or online. It’s open to novelists, short story writers, poets, and writers working in nonfiction—but it’s for writers of books, and books only for adults, meaning no screenplay writers, no playwrights, no comics illustrators, no YA or children’s authors. It’s all about a book intended for grown-ups.
There were 141 entries in 2025. Last year there were 143. This year’s judging panel of four include literary figures of various repute in Melbourne, Los Angeles, Norwich, and Hamilton.
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 14. They must be emailed to stephen11@xtra.co.nz 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.
Good luck to all who apply; the clock ticks steadily towards the chimes of midnight, Sunday, September 14.
Full list of first-prize winners of the past iterations of the Surrey Hotel writers residency award:
2016, Kelly Dennett, who went on to 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).
