Short Story Competition: Finding the right space to do your writing

Published by the Post, 15 September 2024.

Short Story Competition: Finding the right space to do your writing | The Post

Emily Makere Broadmore is a writer who never gets to use the writing space she created.

She’s raising twin 8-year-olds, running her business Heft Communications and producing her literary journal Folly.

“I joke that I created a writers studio based on what I would love to use and yet I never have time to use it.”

In 2023, Broadmore established the Wellington Writers Studio, upstairs from an art gallery corner of Cuba St and Ghuznee St in the 128-year-old Berry Building.

Once home to the New Zealand Photographic Company and William Berry, a popular portrait photographer, the building has been home to many artists over the years, including musicians and a dancing school.

These days the classic Edwardian building now houses five desks and a welcoming couch for writers to use 24/7.

Unlike co-working spaces, which carry commercial price-tags, Broadmore’s vision was to offer a cheap and quiet space members could pop in and out of.

And it works – not only is membership high enough that expenses are covered, the room is never so full that members can’t get a seat. Most importantly: they’re writing.

“When you're writing, you're so impacted by the energy and the environment around you,” Broadmore says.

“I know this sounds very woo and I'm not a woo-woo person, but this is what everyone says as well, that ‘the energy here is amazing’ or ‘I get so much done when I'm here’... There is something about the room.

Emily Makere Broadmore says energy and environment are important when writing.DAVID UNWIN / The Post

“It gets beautiful sun, it’s very calm, there’s been this huge history of creatives working from the space, and you're not going to get that at home because you've got dishes to do and laundry and Lego.”

One key strategy for the studio is that there are no limits on what kind of writer you have to be. Members range from the commercially successful to the as-yet unpublished.

“We've got a lot of science fiction, amazingly enough,” Broadmore says.

“There are a lot of people who are coming through the doors who are writing fantasy and sci-fi, who would never get a residency because that's not the sort of writing that these residencies are looking for.”

For writer Josie Shapiro, whose debut novel Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts won the Allen & Unwin Commercial Fiction Prize in 2023, writing residencies have meant she actually gets to write outside of the two hours before her children wake up.

One tricky thing about writing residencies is you need a bit of a profile, Shapiro says. Before her first novel, she had none of that, and so most days wrote from about 5am until 7am at her desk at home until the book was finished.

“Just to have that brain space in the morning, before I’ve looked at the internet or spoken to anybody, I can put that really open mind to the work,” she says.

“I also find I’m less judgemental about my work when I’m not totally awake and I’m not looking at it in that critical manner.”

Then she won three major residencies: one week thanks to the University of Auckland’s Humanities department, a two-week stint at the Michael King Writers Centre and a four-month stay as a Sargeson Fellow in a small apartment surrounded by photos of previous fellows - from the very first, Janet Frame, to other literary greats like Charlotte Chidgey and Lee Murray.

There, Shapiro had her first experience of the luxury of time.

“You get a lot of time to think during the day and there aren’t a lot of things edging into your mind, so that’s the gift of space as well.

“It’s a gift of permission too, that what you’re doing is valuable and you should be able to have all this time and brain space to work on it. I think that’s really what you don’t have when you’re rushing the work behind everything else.”

Beginning a period of focused writing, whether for a week or four months, felt immensely freeing, Shapiro says, leaving her with a relaxed, open mind.

Entries for the 2024 Sunday Star-Times short story competition are open. In association with the Milford Foundation and Penguin Random House the prize pool this year is $20,000, with $15,000 awarded to the overall open category winner. The competition this year also has support from Heft Communications and the Wellington Writers Studio.

But returning to real life was a slight shock, Shapiro admits, and it’s been hard relearning how to balance her writing time and energy with the rest of her day.

Both her new novel and its characters are demanding about as much creative energy as her family does, she says. A more experienced writer’s advice would be welcomed.

But she’s managed to bring a small slice of the residency experience home with her: instead of a gallery of previous Sargeson or Michael King winners on the walls, she has one illustration propped up on her desk: of Katherine Mansfield.

“It makes you feel so honoured to be a part of that history,” she says.