Words And Gardens Combine In Writer’s ‘Homecoming’ Project

Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury (UC) has announced that novelist, poet, non-fiction writer and editor Sarah Quigley will be the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence for the first half of 2025.

Quigley is an internationally recognised award-winning author who works across a range of forms; from novels, short stories and poetry to non-fiction and columns.

Originally from Ōtautahi Christchurch, she gained a Bachelor of Arts with Honours and then a Master of Arts with the English Department at UC, before earning a doctorate in literature at Oxford University.

She recently returned to Aotearoa after a long period based in Berlin. She’s been awarded numerous prestigious prizes, including the Commonwealth Short Story Award and the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award, and her work has been longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for the French literary prize Prix Femina. Her internationally best-selling novel The Conductor is currently being adapted for a United Kingdom/United States-produced film.

“Sarah is going to be working on a fascinating multi-modal project that explores correspondence, and that looks in part to Ursula Bethell’s legacy and love of gardens,” says UC Arts Senior Lecturer Dr Erin Harrington. “We’re so excited she’ll be joining us in the English Department in late January, when she will take over from current writer-in-residence, Pip Adam. We look forward to welcoming her.”

Quigley says she’s excited and honoured to be offered the residency. “In some ways it’s like a homecoming: Waitaha Canterbury is where I began my life, and Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury is the place where I first discovered how deeply I loved words.

“My time as a student in the English Department at UC set me on the path to becoming a writer. I’m hugely looking forward to working alongside inspiring colleagues and students, and to paying tribute to Ursula Bethell, a poet I’ve always loved,” she says.

“My book is going to be a way of weaving together words and ecology. It’ll examine our need to create art, and to create gardens – what Bethell termed ‘our small fond human enclosures’. And it’ll highlight the deep effect of our small daily doings on our landscapes and environment.”

Quigley’s project will also focus on correspondence. “Because a large part of our lives is now conducted online, and so many of our conversations are carried out via Zoom or email, I want to turn the spotlight back onto handwritten communication. My project will be an epistolary one, a hybrid work of fiction and non-fiction based on the daily lives of real New Zealand creatives. I want to celebrate the power of the written – and handwritten – word.”

Find out more about her work here:https://sarahvquigley.com/ 

About the Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing 
Ursula Mary Bethell (1874–1945) was a Christchurch poet and artist. The Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing was established by the University of Canterbury in 1979 to support New Zealand writers and foster New Zealand writing. The residency, jointly funded by the University of Canterbury Faculty of Arts and Creative New Zealand, allows authors of proven merit in all areas of literary and creative activity an opportunity to work on an approved project within an academic environment. Previous recipients include Owen Marshall (1981), Margaret Mahy (1984), Keri Hulme (1985) and Eleanor Catton (2011).

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