Robert Burns Fellowship
Encyclopedia
The Robert Burns Fellowship, established in 1958 as a bicentennial celebration, is claimed to be New Zealand's premier literary residency
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

. The list of past fellows includes many of New Zealand's most notable writers.

The award was established by an anonymous group (thought to have been instigated by Charles Brasch
Charles Brasch
Charles Orwell Brasch was a New Zealand poet, literary editor and arts patron. He was the founding editor of the literary journal Landfall....

) to be awarded each year to "writers of imaginative literature, including poetry, drama, fiction, autobiography, biography, essays or literary criticism."

The position is based at the University of Otago
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...

 in Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. It provides a year's salary along with accommodation and an office for a writer in and around the university. Terms are for one year, although this may be extended to a second year in rare cases.

The Robert Burns Fellowship is named after Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

's national poet Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

. Dunedin is the city in New Zealand with the highest proportion of people of Scottish descent, and one of its founding fathers was Burns's nephew Thomas Burns
Thomas Burns (New Zealand)
Thomas Burns was a prominent early European settler and religious leader of the province of Otago, New Zealand.Burns was baptised at Mauchline, Ayrshire, Scotland in April 1796, the son of estate manager Gilbert Burns, who was the brother of the poet Robert Burns...

.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the fellowship, a book - Nurse to the imagination: Fifty years of the Robert Burns Fellowship - is to be launched in October 2008, along with commemorations to coincide with Dunedin's 2008 Arts Festival.

Robert Burns Fellows

  • 1959 Ian Cross
    Ian Cross
    Ian Cross is a novelist, journalist and has contributed significantly to New Zealand letters. His first novel, The God Boy, was released in 1957 to critical acclaim. Other novels include The Backward Sex, After ANZAC Day and The Family Man.Cross has worked as a successful broadcaster on radio and...

  • 1960 Maurice Duggan
    Maurice Duggan
    Maurice Noel Duggan was a New Zealand writer of short fiction.-Life Overview:Born in Auckland and raised on the city’s North Shore, Duggan was mentored by Frank Sargeson and was friendly with many of the important writers of the day, including Greville Texidor, John Reece Cole, Keith Sinclair and...

  • 1961 John Caselberg
    John Caselberg
    John Caselberg was a prominent New Zealand writer, based in Dunedin. His work ranged through poetry and playwriting to short stories and essays...

  • 1962 R.A.K. Mason
  • 1963 Maurice Shadbolt
    Maurice Shadbolt
    Maurice Francis Richard Shadbolt CBE was a New Zealand writer and playwright. He was born in Auckland, and educated at Te Kuiti High School, Avondale College and Auckland University College...

  • 1964 Maurice Gee
    Maurice Gee
    Maurice Gee is a New Zealand novelist.-Awards and honors:Gee was awarded the 1978 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Plumb...

  • 1965 Janet Frame
    Janet Frame
    Janet Paterson Frame, ONZ, CBE was a New Zealand author. She wrote eleven novels, four collections of short stories, a book of poetry, an edition of juvenile fiction, and three volumes of autobiography during her lifetime. Since her death, a twelfth novel, a second volume of poetry, and a handful...

  • 1966-1967 James K. Baxter
    James K. Baxter
    James Keir Baxter was a poet, and is a celebrated figure in New Zealand society.-Biography:Baxter was born in Dunedin to Archibald Baxter and Millicent Brown and grew up near Brighton. He was named after James Keir Hardie, a founder of the British Labour Party. His father had been a conscientious...

  • 1968 Ruth Dallas
    Ruth Dallas
    Ruth Dallas is the pseudonym of New Zealand poet and children's author Ruth Minnie Mumford.Ruth was born in Invercargill, the daughter of Frank and Minnie Mumford. She became blind in one eye at the age of 15, then spent three years at the Southland Technical College and was engaged at the age of 19...

  • 1969 Warren Dibble
  • 1970 O. E. Middleton
    O. E. Middleton
    O.E. Middleton was a New Zealand writer of short stories, described as belonging to the vernacular critical realist tradition of Frank Sargeson. He was the brother of noted New Zealand novelist Ian Middleton, and like him also blind from middle age...

  • 1971 Noel Hilliard
  • 1972 Ian Wedde
    Ian Wedde
    Ian Curtis Wedde ONZM is a New Zealand poet, fiction writer, critic, and art curator.-Biography:Born in Blenheim, New Zealand, Wedde lived in East Pakistan and England as a child before returning to New Zealand. He attended King's College and University of Auckland, graduating with an MA in...

  • 1973 Graham Billing
  • 1974 Hone Tuwhare
    Hone Tuwhare
    Hone Tuwhare was a noted New Zealand poet of Māori ancestry. He is closely associated with The Catlins in the Otago region of New Zealand, where he lived for the latter part of his life.-Early years:...

  • 1975 Witi Ihimaera
    Witi Ihimaera
    Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler, DCNZM, QSM , generally known as Witi Ihimaera , is a New Zealand author, and is often regarded as one of the most prominent Māori writers alive.-Biography:...

  • 1976 Sam Hunt
  • 1977 Kerry Hulme and Roger Hall
    Roger Hall
    Roger Leighton Hall, CNZM, QSO is a British born New Zealander actor and playwright, known for his comedies that carry a serious vein of social criticism and feelings of pathos.-Early years:...

  • 1978 Roger Hall
    Roger Hall
    Roger Leighton Hall, CNZM, QSO is a British born New Zealander actor and playwright, known for his comedies that carry a serious vein of social criticism and feelings of pathos.-Early years:...

     and Peter Olds
  • 1979 Michael A Noonan
  • 1980 Philip Temple
    Philip Temple
    Philip Temple is a Dunedin-based New Zealand author of novels, children's stories, and non-fiction...

  • 1981-1982 William Sewell
    William Sewell
    William Sewell , English divine and author, was born at Newport, Isle of Wight, the son of a solicitor.He was educated at Winchester and Merton College, Oxford, was elected a fellow of Exeter College in 1827, and from 1831-1853 was a tutor there. From 1836-1841 he was White's Professor of Moral...

  • 1983 Rawiri Paratene
    Rawiri Paratene
    -Biography:Born in Hokianga, Paratene is from the Maori iwi of Nga Puhi. Paratene has appeared in a large number of television, stage and film roles. He is also a theatrical director and writer for film, television and theatre...

  • 1984 Brian Turner
    Brian Turner (New Zealand poet)
    Brian Turner is a New Zealand poet and author. He played hockey for New Zealand in the 1960s; senior cricket in Dunedin and Wellington; and was a veteran road cyclist of note...

  • 1985-1986 Cilla McQueen
    Cilla McQueen
    Cilla McQueen is a poet and three-time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry.-Early years and Education:McQueen's family moved to New Zealand when she was four....

  • 1987 Robert Lord
    Robert Lord
    Robert Lord was an American screenwriter and film producer. He wrote for 71 films between 1925 and 1940. He won an Academy Award in 1933 in the category Best Writing, Original Story for the film One Way Passage...

  • 1988 John Dickson
  • 1989 Renee
    Renee
    Renee is a feminine given name. This form of the name is in use in Australia, Canada, Latin America, and Europe.-Origin:Renee is the female form of René, with the extra –e making it feminine according to French grammar. The name René is the French form of the late Roman name Renatus and the...

  • 1990 David Eggleton
  • 1991 Lynley Hood
  • 1992 Owen Marshall
    Owen Marshall
    Owen Marshall is the pen name of Owen Marshall Jones, a New Zealand short story writer and novelist. The third son of a Methodist minister and older brother of Rhys Jones, he came of age in Blenheim and Timaru, and graduated from the University of Canterbury with an MA in English in 1964...

  • 1993 Stuart Hoare
  • 1994 Christine Johnston
  • 1995 Elspeth Sandys
  • 1996 Bernadette Hall
    Bernadette Hall
    Bernadette Hall is a New Zealand writer and poet. She was raised in what she describes as a small-city Catholic community that was proud, theatrical and pretty much enclosed. After a career as a teacher of Latin and classical studies she started writing full time in her 40s...

  • 1997 Paddy Richardson
    Paddy Richardson
    Paddy Richardson is a writer who lives in Dunedin, New Zealand and has published two collections of short stories,'Choices' and 'If We Were Lebanese' [Steele Roberts, 2003), and three novels, 'The Company of a Daughter' , A Year to Learn A Woman' and 'Hunting Blind'...

  • 1998 Michael King
    Michael King
    Michael King, OBE was a New Zealand popular historian, author and biographer. He wrote or edited over 30 books on New Zealand topics, including The Penguin History of New Zealand, which was the most popular New Zealand book of 2004.-Life:King was born in Wellington to Eleanor and Commander Lewis...

  • 1999 Michael King
    Michael King
    Michael King, OBE was a New Zealand popular historian, author and biographer. He wrote or edited over 30 books on New Zealand topics, including The Penguin History of New Zealand, which was the most popular New Zealand book of 2004.-Life:King was born in Wellington to Eleanor and Commander Lewis...

     and Paula Boock
  • 2000 James Norcliffe
  • 2001 Jo Randerson
  • 2002 Alison Wong
    Alison Wong
    Alison Wong is a New Zealand poet of Chinese heritage. Her background in mathematics comes across in her poetry, not as a subject, but in the careful formulation of words to white space and precision...

  • 2003 Nick Ascroft and Sarah Quigley
  • 2004 Katherine Duignan
  • 2005 Catherine Chidgey
    Catherine Chidgey
    Catherine Chidgey was born in New Zealand in 1970 and grew up in the Hutt Valley. She has degrees in creative writing, psychology, and German literature....

  • 2006 Catherine Chidgey
    Catherine Chidgey
    Catherine Chidgey was born in New Zealand in 1970 and grew up in the Hutt Valley. She has degrees in creative writing, psychology, and German literature....

     and Dianne Ruth Pettis
  • 2007 Laurence Fearnley
  • 2008 Sue Wootton
  • 2009 Michael Harlow

External links

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