For over fifty years, since 1970, the Fellowship has allowed a New Zealand writer to live and write for three months or more in Menton in southern France. There, they have access to the writing room in Villa Isola Bella where Katherine Mansfield once lived and worked.

Sue Wootton was awarded the Fellowship in 2019 and was set to travel to Menton in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic put a significant hold on that plan.

Sue finally arrived in Menton in early September 2023 and was based there for the remainder of the year.

I still remember reading Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss when I was a teenager, and being knocked sideways by what she could do with a sentence. Forty years on, and I am deeply honoured to have the opportunity to live and write for three months in Menton, France, as the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow. My main project while I’m there will be writing poetry towards a new collection whose working title is Systems of Light. I have the wonderful feeling that the chance to immerse myself in a completely different place and language will generate, to use Katherine Mansfield’s phrase, a whole new “shower of sparks”

You can find more about the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship and past recipients here.