New Zealand writers Kate Duignan and Rachael King have been awarded the prestigious 2025 Sargeson Fellowship.

The Fellowship is a national literary award which for the past 37 years has offered published New Zealand writers the opportunity to focus on their craft in a sustained way. Named in memory of New Zealand writer Frank Sargeson, it offers an annual stipend of $26,000 to concentrate on a project.

Rachael King, who takes up the Fellowship in March 2025, is a former literary festival director and an award-winning writer of adult and children’s fiction. Her books have been published internationally and in other languages. Her latest children’s novel, The Grimmelings, was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults this year. Rachael will work on a YA fantasy novel, Song of the Saltings, and a creative non-fiction project, part memoir, part literary criticism and part cultural history.

Rachael says, “I’m so grateful to the Frank Sargeson Trust for continuing the fellowship in 2025 even without the residency attached. Like many writers with children, I have not been able to apply for any extended residencies in the last fifteen years. This will allow me to take short writing retreats closer to home and to give my full attention to my next novel – a moody young adult fantasy – for four months, which is a real gift. That it is in Frank Sargeson’s name makes it very special to me indeed. I also appreciate that the Trust has seen fit to support writing for our rangatahi, who need good stories now more than ever.”

Kate Duignan writes fiction and currently teaches at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Her work includes two novels, and the most recent – The New Ships – was shortlisted in the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in various journals. She will use the award in the latter part of the year to develop her third novel, set in Canada and New Zealand.

Kate says, “I’m thrilled to be awarded the illustrious Frank Sargeson Fellowship, which will let me take a break from teaching and work on a new novel next year. It feels like a big endorsement of a fledgling start to the book to receive this. There’s a long list of remarkable writers who have held this Fellowship, and I’m honoured to have my name there. It’s especially helpful to have a Fellowship that lets me stay in Pōneke with my young family.”

Frank Sargeson Trust Chair Elizabeth Aitken-Rose says:

“The Sargeson Literary Fellowship has recognised and nurtured many of Aotearoa New Zealand’s exceptional writers for nearly 40 years. In 2025, Kate Duignan and Rachael King join this legacy and were selected from an incredibly strong and passionate field of applicants. The Fellowship will give them the time and support to focus on work that will undoubtedly embellish the imagination and understandings of us all.”

About the Sargeson Fellowship:

The inaugural Sargeson Fellow in 1987 was Janet Frame, who described the importance of Sargeson’s friendship for her personal and literary life in the second volume of her autobiography, An Angel at My Table. In 2007 the fellowship became the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship, and between 2014 and 2023 was the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship under the sponsorship of law firm Grimshaw & Co. Sargeson Fellowship recipients over the years have included Charlotte Grimshaw, Catherine Chidgey, Paula Morris, James George, Hera Lindsay Byrd, Nathan Joe and Lee Murray.

About the Frank Sargeson Trust:

The Trust was set up in 1983 by Christine Cole Catley, Frank Sargeson’s heir and executor.The Trust aims to continue Sargeson’s lifelong generosity to writers through providing fellowships, while preserving his house in Takapuna, Auckland, as New Zealand’s first literary museum.For further information, see: https://franksargeson.nz/

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