Come visit us at 14 St Mary Street in Thorndon on Labour Weekend Sunday for our annual Open Day.
Enjoy homemade afternoon tea and listen to a programme of readings from a wide-ranging group of prose and poetry writers. Buy a raffle ticket for a bundle of books.
All welcome, free entry, koha appreciated.
14 St Mary Street
Sunday 25 October
1.00–4.00pm
Part of the 2026 Wellington Heritage Festival.
We say a sad farewell and thanks to Her Excellency Mme Laurence Beau, French Ambassador and Trust Patron, on her return to Paris.
During her four year posting in Wellington, Mme Beau ensured the Embassy kept a warm and collaborative relationship with Randell Cottage as we hosted successive French residents in our heritage cottage. To mark our 20th anniversary, Mme Beau launched the bilingual collection ‘Room to Write’ which showcased works by both French and New Zealand Randell Cottage alumni.
We appreciated her personal love of literature, which she demonstrated in a special farewell lunch featuring joint Patron Dame Fiona Kidman and literary luminary and Randell Cottage alumnus Witi Ihimaera Smiler, together with Trust Chair Christine Hurley and others from the world of books.
Our 2014 writer-in-residence, Tina Makereti, has been awarded the prestigious 2026 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship.
The announcement was made in Wellington on 10 September by the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship Committee in conjunction with The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi and Craig Investment Partners.
Tina will head to France in early 2027.
We’re delighted to announce that applications open on 1 September for our sought-after New Zealand residency at Randell Cottage. Apply to join us in the 25th anniversary year of our writing Fellowship or pass the news on to your contacts.
We offer a stay of six months from July to December 2027 in our two-bedroom, heritage cottage on the slopes of Te Ahumairangi, close to shops and cafes in Tinakori Road. The National Library, Archives NZ, and the Turnbull Library are a short walk away. Bus routes will take you across the city, including to the new Central Library Te Matapihi.
Our Fellowship provides a living cost stipend of $32,000 for the six months, where you’ll stay with no charges for rent or council rates. You’ll just cover your food, utilities and household costs. And there’s room for a partner and even a small family, though sadly no pets.
As our 2025 writer, Saraid de Silva, said, “Because I had never had six months to myself in this fashion, I arrived not really grasping how productive it would allow me to be. What I was able to send at the end of my residency was polished and honed.”
Don’t hesitate if you think it may not be a good fit: over the years we’ve hosted a very diverse set of writers. We encourage mid-career NZ creatives from all writing genres to apply.
Have you got a few publications under your belt and a really well-developed project to put before our selectors? Then check out the details online and be sure to meet the deadline of 23 October.
Read more about the residency.
For any clarifications, please email us at applications@randellcottage.co.nz with QUERY in the header.
We are delighted to announce, in conjunction with the French Embassy, that Lili Sohn will be the 2027 French writer-in-residence at Randell Cottage. She was chosen from among 28 applicants by a French and NZ selection panel.
Lili’s arrival will mark the beginning of our twenty-fifth anniversary year. She will be the fiftieth Randell Cottage resident, dating from the inaugural writers in 2002, Peter Wells from New Zealand and Nadine Ribault from France.
Lili is the first graphic novelist to be selected for the residency. Her works have appeared with leading French and Franco-Belgian publishers such as Casterman and Delcourt.
Her project is an exciting, challenging and sensitive one: centring on the complexities surrounding the restitution of a tattooed head or toi moko found in a Rouen museum. Lili proposes to deepen her research for the project by consulting with Te Papa specialists and university academics.
Lili and family will join us from early January for a five-month stay. Her visit will include presentations to Alliance Française groups throughout the country, as well as to functions hosted by the Randell Cottage Writers Trust.
As we move past the shortest day of the year and look optimistically towards Spring and Summer, here are two dates for your calendars:
Sunday 25 October from 1 to 4 pm: Annual Open Day at Randell Cottage, 14 St Mary Street, as part of the Wellington Heritage Festival.
Come along on the Sunday of Labour Weekend to visit the Cottage, enjoy delicious home-made afternoon teas under the garden gazebo and listen to a full programme of readings by our current writer-in-residence and other authors and poets. Relax in our pretty garden and hope to win a parcel of books in our raffles.
You can also join the Creative and Historic Cottages Walk around Thorndon. Make a day of it and see the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden in the morning, stop in one of the local cafes for a snack and then make your way to Randell Cottage, Rita Angus Cottage and Lilburn House during the afternoon.
Wednesday 25 November 6-7 pm with light refreshments from 5.30: Randell Cottage Writers Evening in the Archives Library NZ auditorium
This is your chance to hear from our exciting new writer, essa may ranapiri, who is living in Randell Cottage with their family from July to December.
We’ll also share the two latest videos, made as permanent records of the style, aspirations and experiences of our recent French and New Zealand residents.
More to come closer to the time!
We love to celebrate the works of Randell Cottage alumni. Just launched is NOVA, a novel by Tim Corballis, published by Te Herenga Waka University Press.
Author of the celebrated novel Amma, Saraid de Silva has spent a six-month residency at Randell Cottage working on her much-anticipated second work. In this new video she reflects on her personal style, the working environment of the Cottage and the value of a dedicated, uninterrupted time for creative writing.
We acknowledge the many generous supporters whose contributions to our Boosted campaign made it possible to fund Saraid’s residency and help to maintain our heritage building.
Saraid’s video is one of a series commissioned by the Trust to provide a permanent oral history record of our writers towards the end of their residency, capturing their experiences and aspirations at that moment in time. They are available on our website and are also held by arrangement by the Turnbull Library.
Watch Saraid’s interview
Congratulations to Tina Makereti, Randell Cottage Fellow in 2014, who has won the Ockhams General Non-Fiction award for This Compulsion in Us (published by Te Herenga Waka University Press).