Megan Dunn will be the 2022 University Writer in Residence
We are sad to announce that scriptwriter Tim Worrall has had to withdraw from this position because of a change in personal circumstances. However, we are delighted that the brilliant essayist and irreverent non-fiction writer Megan Dunn will now be 2022 Te Herenga Waka Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence, based at the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML).
A 'reformed' video artist, she co-directed the artist-run gallery Fiat Lux in the late nineties. Her art reviews and criticism have been widely published and she was The Spinoff's 2019 art editor. Megan has been the recipient of an Escalator award from the New Writing Partnership (now the National Centre for Writing), a Louis Johnson New Writers Award, the Surrey Hotel Steve Braunias Memorial Writers Residency Award, and an Emerging Writers Residency at the Michael King Writers Centre. She has recently appeared on RNZ Saturday morning, in a new occasional segment called, 'What's art got to do with it?', discussing the intersection of art and life with Kim Hill.
During her time at the IIML, Megan will work on a memoir composed of linked thematic essays, which she describes as the completion of her 'life-writing trilogy'.
'The Saucy Flipper is a memoir about mermaids, menopause, and me', Megan says of her residency project. 'It is a mid-life tale about turning into the Terrible Fish in the final lines of Sylvia Plath's famous poem "The Mirror". It is also a portrait of me, as an artist, asking fundamental questions about female work and creativity.'
Megan will take up her residency at Bill Manhire House on 1 February.