The Randell Cottage Writers' Residency is a literary residency in New Zealand. It is awarded annually to one New Zealand writer and one French writer, comprising six months' rent-free accommodation at Randell Cottage in Wellington and a stipend ( set at 32,000). The recipients are usually mid-career writers. The cottage itself is listed with Heritage New Zealand.
The residency is based at Randell Cottage in the suburb of Thorndon, Wellington. The cottage was built in 1868 by William Randell, the great-grandfather of children's author Beverley Randell. He and his wife Sarah raised their 10 children at the cottage. After seventy years of the cottage being owned by other families, Beverley and her husband, Hugh Price, bought the cottage in 1994 and restored it to how it had been at the time of William's ownership.
In 2002, on the suggestion of her daughter Susan Price, Beverley Randell decided to gift the cottage to a trust for the purpose of setting up a writers' residency. The plan was partly inspired by an attempt to set up a similar residency in memory of the poet Lauris Edmond, which had been unsuccessful. It was the first dedicated writers' residency in Wellington. In part, the residency reciprocates the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, which provides a residency based in France for New Zealand writers. The trust has been supported by Creative New Zealand, the New ZealandâÂÂFrance Friendship Fund and the Wellington City Council. Founding trustees included Fiona Kidman and Vincent O'Sullivan.
Kirsty Gunn, 2009 writer-in-residence, described the cottage:
Caroline Laurent, the 2021 French recipient, was unable to take up the residency during the year due to COVID-19 border restrictions. She eventually was able to take up her residency in December 2022.
In late 2024 it was reported that the fellowship was experiencing funding difficulties after Creative New Zealand declined its funding application for the next three years. The trust sought crowd-funding to enable a 2025 residency.
Randell Cottage was registered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (now Heritage New Zealand) on 14 December 1995. The building has a Category II classification. The registration covers the building and the section it is placed on and the rationale for the listing was the "historical and cultural heritage significance and value". Some of the household items uncovered during the restoration of the cottage are held at Te Papa.
The recipients of the residency have been: