Writer heading to Dunedin looking for inspiration

• Published date: 27 May 2023
• Publication title: Otago Daily Times (New Zealand)

Shu-Ling Chua, of Melbourne, has been selected as the inaugural international recipient of Dunedin’s new Caselberg Trust Margaret Egan Cities of Literature Writers’ Residency

Ms Chua said she was ‘‘thrilled’’ to be selected and was looking forward to what she believed would be a ‘‘beautifully inspiring’’ time at Caselberg House in Broad Bay.

While her preferred form of writing is lyric essays, she has also written non-fiction, criticism, poetry and fiction for various publications, including Peril Magazine, Meanjin, Going Down Swinging, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Vogue China, and 4A Papers.

Her essay collection, Echoes, jointly won the 2021 Small Press Network Book of the Year Award, and other recent achievements included being shortlisted for the 2021 Deakin University Non-fiction Prize and the 2018 Woollahra Digital Literary Award.

During her residency, she planned to work on a full-length essay collection on art, intimacy, longing, and the blurry boundaries between private and public.

City of Literature director Nicky Page said the writers’ residency, organised by the Caselberg Trust and Dunedin Unesco City of Literature, was launched on March 3, 2023 to mark International Writers’ Day.

‘‘It will be offered every...