The NCW residency programme encompasses in-person and virtual residencies for writers and translators. We work with a wide range of partners and funders to support NCW residencies and exchanges, and we also publicise opportunities for creatives to take part in residencies with fellow UNESCO Cities of Literature around the world.
What is the NCW residency programme?
Hear from NCW Associate Programme Director Kate Griffin and previous NCW residents on the different strands of our residencies, the benefits, and how we share and facilitate opportunities for writers and literary translators.
Explore NCW Residencies
Opportunities and past work from our residents.
Browse upcoming residency opportunities
We regularly host open calls for in-person and virtual residencies with the National Centre for Writing, as well as promoting residencies in other UNESCO Cities of Literature.
Past and future residents
Browse all past and future writers and translators in residence with National Centre for Writing.
Meet the World
A series of events which aim to celebrate our ongoing connections with international writers and translators by sharing their writing and ideas with new readers.
Dragon Hall Retreats
A Retreat in the Dragon Hall Cottage is an investment in your writing and an opportunity to get away from it all. We welcome applications for single or joint retreats from anyone interested in creative writing or literary translation.
Imagining the City
Virtual residencies and digital exchanges, connecting Norwich to writers and translators from around the world. The programme includes a wide range of commissions and events.
Walking Norwich
Find out more about all our residents’ experience of Norwich UNESCO City of Literature through Walking Norwich — a collection of real and imagined journeys through the city. Image © VisitNorwich
Being selected for this residency was a highlight of this year for me
Dragon Hall residencies
Throughout the year, we offer residencies in Norwich to writers and translators from the UK and around the world, introducing them to local writers and translators at the monthly Dragon Hall Social.
In-person residencies are hosted in the Cottage, part of the Dragon Hall campus, and generally last between one week and one month. You can discover more about the Cottage here →
Details of our current Dragon Hall residents and the projects they are working on are found below.
Current residents
Elhum Shakerifar (December 2023)
Elhum Shakerifar is a writer and translator, most recently of PEN Award-winning, Warwick Prize-nominated Negative of a Group Photograph by Azita Ghahreman, translated alongside poet Maura Dooley (Bloodaxe Books, 2018). She is currently one of Writerz & Scribez’ inaugural poetry Griots. Elhum is also a BAFTA-nominated producer and curator working through her London-based company Hakawati (‘storyteller’ in Arabic).
This Dragon Hall Cottage Visible Communities residency is generously supported by the Francis W Reckitt Arts Trust.
New! Dragon Hall Retreats
An open invitation for all creative writers and literary translators to spend time living and working in our Cottage. Each Retreat is a unique escape and an investment in your writing.
Virtual residencies
We also offer virtual residencies to writers and translators, usually part-time over several months, bringing national and international voices and ideas to Norwich and beyond through commissions, podcasts and online events.
Details of our current virtual residents and the projects they are working on can be found below.
Current residents
We are delighted to host three writers and translators from Singapore in virtual residence, from June to December 2023, with the generous support of the National Arts Council of Singapore.
Nur-El-Hudaa Jaffar (June to December 2023)
Nur-El-Hudaa Jaffar has translated children’s picture books, fiction and poetry since 2017. She won the Inaugural MASTERA Translation Prize for Poetry in 2019 and has conducted translation workshops for students. She is also an editorial consultant and the author of eight children’s picture books. In 2017, her short stories won the first and second prizes at the Golden Point Award (Malay language category), organised by the National Art Council of Singapore. She has been a moderator and speaker at events such as the Singapore Writers Festival and the Asian Festival of Children’s Content.
Sim Wai-chew (June to December 2023)
Wai-chew Sim obtained his BA (Honours) from the University of East Anglia and his PhD from the University of Warwick. His work has appeared in Textual Practice, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, and CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. His English translation of Singapore writer Joo-Ming Chia’s sinophone novel, Exile or Pursuit [放逐与追逐] was published by Balestier Press in 2019. Website
Tse Hao Guang (June to December 2023)
Tse Hao Guang (謝皓光) is the author of The International Left-Hand Calligraphy Association (Tinfish Press, 2023) and Deeds of Light (Math Paper Press, 2015), the latter shortlisted for the 2016 Singapore Literature Prize. He edits or has edited the collaborative e-journal OF ZOOS; UnFree Verse (Ethos Books, 2017), the anthology of Singapore poetry in received and nonce forms; literary food writing anthology Food Republic (Landmark Books, 2020); and the new edition of Windham-Campbell prize-winning poet Wong May’s 1969 debut, A Bad Girl’s Book of Animals (Ethos Books, 2023). He is a 2016 fellow of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program and the 2018 National Writer-in-Residence at Nanyang Technological University. Poems and essays appear in Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Yale Review, Poetry Northwest, Entropy and elsewhere. Website
Image (c) Daryl Qilin Yam
Header image © Max-Leveridge
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