2026 Ireland Wilson Sargeson Fellowship winners announced

New Zealand writers Laurence Fearnley and Bridget van der Zijpp have been awarded the prestigious 2026 Ireland Wilson Sargeson Fellowships.

This national literary award, named in memory of New Zealand writers Frank Sargeson, Kevin Ireland and Phillip Wilson, offers an annual stipend of $30,000, shared between two fellows, for them to write fulltime on a book project.

Auckland writer Bridget van der Zijpp, who takes up her fellowship in March 2026, is an author of three contemporary novels published here and internationally. Bridget will work on her fourth novel, Force Majeure, set in a small farming community dealing with contemporary dilemmas including bullying, power struggles and furtive trolling.

Bridget says, “I am truly thrilled to be awarded the Fellowship. It is an honour to be associated with those three illustrious writers — Kevin Ireland, Phillip Wilson and Frank Sargeson — and to join the decades of literary names whose work has been supported by the Trust. I am so grateful to the Trustees for their long-held dedication to nurturing Aotearoa’s literary voices, and to Janet Wilson for generously ensuring the Fellowship’s continuance in 2026. This has definitely given my novel-in-progress a genuine boost — providing the very warm kick to focus and get on and finish it next year.”

Laurence Fearnley is an award-winning author from Dunedin with thirteen titles including a series of novels based on the five senses: Scented (smell), Winter Time (touch), At the Grand Glacier Hotel (sound) and Dedication (sight — forthcoming 2026). She will use her fellowship to write the final novel in the sequence.

Laurence says, “I was a student at Canterbury University in 1986 and was sat in Room 104 of the English Department when Kevin Ireland — the Writer in Residence — performed his sequence of sonnets, The Year of the Comet. It was a breathtaking event and one of the first times I experienced poetry as a living, breathing form. Forty years later, I have been fortunate enough to receive the Ireland Wilson Sargeson Fellowship.

My project, Rise and Shine, is to write a protest novel located on the Clutha/Mata-au River. The final of my ‘five senses project’, this novel will follow a middle-aged woman who decides to kayak the length of the Clutha as a protest against a planned open-cast goldmine that is to be built in the hills above the river, and which threatens the environment and the health of its surroundings. As someone who has kayaked on the river for many years, I felt compelled to write this novel. Knowing that Kevin Ireland was a keen fly-fisher, I feel that his spirit will guide me along the way as I write about floating, foraging and fishing.”

Frank Sargeson Trust Chair Elizabeth Aitken-Rose says: “The Fellowship has recognised and nurtured many of Aotearoa New Zealand’s exceptional writers for nearly 40 years. In 2026, Bridget van der Zijpp and Laurence Fearnley 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.”

The Trust is hugely grateful to the many generous donors who have made, and continue to make, these Fellowships possible. Special gratitude goes to Emeritus Professor Janet Wilson, who says, “the Ireland Wilson Sargeson Fellowships will enable the Sargeson Trust to continue its important work of fostering emerging New Zealand writers. I am delighted with the choice of this year’s Fellows as the first recipients of the renamed award. They both have exciting and promising projects and are strongly aware of the traditions of writing associated with Sargeson, Ireland and Wilson.”