National arts development agency Creative New Zealand is calling for applications to its annual Berlin Writers’ Residency and Sydney Artspace Residency.

The writers’ award, worth an estimated NZ$60,000, covers rental costs for an apartment in central Berlin for a period of nine months, as well as return airfares from New Zealand, and a stipend of NZ$3,000 per month for the duration of the residency.

Last year’s winner, Auckland novelist Tina Shaw – whose stay in Berlin is now almost complete – commented that the cosmopolitan capital is a ‘tremendously stimulating’ place to create. ‘To be living here in the heart of Europe is expanding and changing my writing, both because of the things I am seeing – all the small details I would never have known about by not being here – and the people I’m meeting from all over the world. It’s an experience I suspect will always stay with me,’ she said.

Aside from international residencies, Creative’s Arts Board also co-funds five writer-in-residence programs at New Zealand universities, plus a children’s writer-in-residence program at the Dunedin College of Education.

Application forms – due by 31 May 2002 – for the Berlin residency can be downloaded from Creative NZ’s website:  http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/funding/programmes/board.html#

Meanwhile, Creative is also offering a three-month residency at Artspace, a major contemporary art gallery in Sydney’s inner-city area of Woolloomooloo.

Previous recipient Stella Brennan, an Auckland artist, art writer and curator, has recently returned from Artspace as the recipient of the 2001 residency. ‘It was really valuable to have the time to work full-time on my project,’ she affirmed.

Application forms – due by 28 June 2002 – for the Artspace residency can be downloaded from Creative NZ’s website: http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/resources/forms-guidelines/artspace2002.rtf or contact Hettie Barnard, email [email protected]