Acclaimed poet Tusiata Avia MNZM has been appointed Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) and Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence for 2026.

Tusiata has received many significant awards including the 2013 Janet Frame Literary Trust Award, a 2023 Te Herenga Waka Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2024 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement.

In 2020, she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts. In 2024, Tusiata received a Creative New Zealand Senior Pacific Artists Award.

Tusiata’s poetry collections include Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004, also staged as a theatre show), Bloodclot (2009), the Ockham-shortlisted Fale Aitu | Spirit House (2016), the Ockham-award-winning The Savage Coloniser Book (2020, also staged as The Savage Coloniser Show), and Big Fat Brown Bitch (2023). Her new book, Giving Birth to My Father, will be published on 6 November 2025.

While holding the residency, Tusiata will work on a new collection of poems provisionally titled How to Make a Terrorist. She says the collection will move from the personal to the global, “from inside an MRI machine scanning my brain. to Christchurch five years after the mosque shooting . . . to Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clark tearing up the Treaty Principles Bill in parliament.”

Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters, Damien Wilkins, says, “Tusiata is a major writer working at the height of her powers. We’re honoured to host her.”

Commenting on the appointment, Tusiata says, “I'm excited to be returning to Te-Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington and to the International Institute of Modern Letters, where my writing career really began, back in 2002. It’s a great opportunity to create something new and contribute to the life of the university and the city.”

Tusiata takes up the residency at the IIML on 1 February 2026.