The Residency, which includes a writing room and a stipend of $15,000, will run for three months during the first half of 2020. Applications are open now.

Current Resident, playwright Leki Jackson-Bourke says, “Where I come from, writing isn’t really a ‘thing’. Being here at the IIML as the Inaugural Emerging Pasifika Writer in Residence dispels that myth. It has been such a luxury to have extra time, space and resource—and being away from my community has given me time to reflect on how important it is for us to champion and write our own stories. We must tell our truth, before someone else does.”

The Residency is unique in offering the chance to work in a stimulating, established community of writers, with a mentor from the Pasifika arts community. Leki’s mentor, renowned playwright Victor Rodger says, “As well as close involvement with his own writing, the mentorship has given Leki the chance to encounter works which have challenged, provoked and expanded his frame of reference and which, I believe, will help his development as a writer.”