New Zealand’s literary exchange with China is available through a partnership between the  Michael King Writers Centre and the Shanghai Writers Association.

We are very happy to announce that Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Te Ata), has been selected to join the 2025 Shanghai Writers’ Association’s International Writing Programme.

Shilo will join writers from eight other countries for two months in Shanghai in September and October this year. The writers receive air travel, free accommodation and a small stipend for living expenses.

An award-winning author and journalist, Shilo’s debut novel, The Pōrangi Boy, won the Young Adult Fiction Award at the 2021 New Zealand Book Awards. In 2024, she released her first adult fiction novel, All That We Know. It debuted at number one on the New Zealand fiction chart and was longlisted for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards – Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. Shilo is passionate about te ao Māori and speaks Mandarin, having lived in Hong Kong. She is currently completing her master’s thesis at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland.

In 2024 and we welcomed Shanghai based writer Chen Danyan to MKWC for eight weeks in September. Danyan was the fifth writer from China to hold a residency at MKWC.

Following a break in the residency exchange programme due to the global pandemic, Melinda Szymanik was selected as the fourth New Zealand writer to go to China and join the 2023 Shanghai Writers’ Association’s International Writing Programme. For a glimpse into Melinda’s time in Shanghai see here.

In September 2019 we welcomed Sun Wei to the centre for her residency. Described as one of China’s most original and leading voices,  Sun Wei, Shanghai born and bred, is a former journalist, documentary filmmaker, and corporate general manager.

Since the exchange began in 2013, three other Chinese writers have also enjoyed a residency at the  Centre  In 2013 Huo Yan, a young writing star from Beijing, took up the first Rewi Alley Fellowship, followed by  acclaimed novelist Xiao Bai from Shanghai in 2015. In 2017  Yin Jian Ling held the two-month residency. Yin is a poet, essayist, novelist, literary critic, illustrator and translator; a versatile Chinese writer of children’s literature, who has covered a wide range of subjects. 

In 2018 Frances Edmond was the recipient of the exchange and she wrote ‘One cannot live in a place even for a short time without it becoming a part of the psyche, leaving its imprint on the essence of who you are.  The opportunity provided by the Shanghai residency, the experience of living and writing in that enormous, vibrant, hospitable city is a rare gift, one to be treasured and always remembered’. 

In 2016 Heidi North Bailey was the recipient of the exchange. Heidi said at the time:

‘I’m having a marvellous, stimulating and productive time. The Shanghai Writers Programme has organised some thoughtful activities for us including visiting a writer’s home, and we have participated in several stimulating cross-cultural literary discussions. But I am also having plenty of time to put hands to keyboard and write. Being here is such a gift’. For more on Heidi’s exchange see here.

In 2014 Alison Wong was the first New Zealand writer selected to join the international writers’ programme.  Alison wrote of her experience:

‘The residency  was invaluable as research for my new book, but also for stimulating fresh creativity and inquiry through exposure to a completely different environment, language and culture. The connections made, whether with Chinese or other international writers were personally and professionally rewarding’