New Plymouth author, reviewer and arts critic David Hill has been named Massey University’s literary Artist-in-Residence for 2016. Mr Hill will take up the position in later this month and will be living in a self-contained flat at the Square Edge Community Arts Centre on the Square until mid-July.

Co-sponsored by Massey University and the Palmerston North City Council, the visiting artist programme is a unique opportunity to support community engagement between artists in creative writing, theatre and the media arts, which includes film-making.

Mr Hill is delighted to to be awarded the reseidency and is grateful for the time it will provide to focus on his writing projects. “I’m also looking forward to being involved in Massey’s new BA Creative Writing major, which is being introduced in 2016, and especially the chance to work with high school students who may be interested in taking up this course in the future.”

Senior lecturer in Creative Writing Thom Conroy says, “Massey is really lucky to have David as the literary artist for 2016. In addition to having experience with a wide range of writers and extensive publishing accomplishments to his name, David is also in the increasingly rare position of being an author who supports himself entirely by his own writing. These characteristics make him an ideal liaison between Massey and the greater Palmerston North community. We can’t wait to have him settled in the Square Edge flat, and into his office in the newly refurbished Sir Geoffrey Peren Building.”

His novels for teenagers and children have been published in over a dozen countries. He is a past winner of the Esther Glen Medal and the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. In 2010, he was Writer in Residence at the University of Iowa in the United States. While serving as Artist-in-Residence he intends to work on a Young Adult novel set during World War II, as well as a picture book based on the life of New Zealand aviator Jean Batten.

Mr Hill will also lead a panel on Young Adult fiction at the Palmerston North City Library on May 20, as part of Off The Page, a joint Massey University-Palmerston North City Library writing series, which has been running for over a decade. The panel will also feature writers Fleur Beale and Anna Mackenzie. Free and open to the public, Off The Page brings some of New Zealand’s finest writers to the Manawatū, including Witi Ihimaera, Elizabeth Knox, Bill Manhire, Karlo Mila, Owen Marshall, Tusiata Avia, James George and Elizabeth Smither.

Further information on the Off The Page events can be found here.