Cove Park International Fellowship

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This prestigious four-week international residency in Cove Park, Scotland is open to Varuna alumni only, with a member of Cove Park’s alumni travelling to Varuna and one Australian writer travelling to Cove Park in 2026.

Residency dates: 1 – 4 October 2026 for Wigtown Book Festival and 5 October – 1 November 2026 at Cove Park
Applications close: 5pm AEST Thursday 11 December 2025
Places: One Australian writer who is a Varuna alumni member will be selected
Who should apply: Varuna alumni members who have had a book-length work published in the past three years are eligible
Fees: There are no application fees or residency fees for this program. The fellowship covers $2,200 towards airfares between Australia and Scotland, private accommodation on Cove Park’s 50-acre rural site on Scotland’s west coast, and a weekly allowance of 150 pounds per week towards food (this residency is self-catering).

FAQ: Please read the FAQ before you apply.

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Varuna alumni members who have published a book-length work in the last three years are invited to apply for a four-week residency at Cove Park in Scotland in October 2026, with the opportunity for an appearance at Wigtown Book Festival.

The fellowship recipient will be one of up to 12 national and international artists taking part in Cove Park’s wider programme, which welcomes those working in all art forms and at every career stage. The programme supports research and development of new work.

We are looking for a writer whose existing work and/or their work in progress will benefit from a residency and festival appearance in rural Scotland. 

Your writing may benefit from exposure to Scotland’s literary traditions, for example your work-in-progress might be immersed in landscape, memory or myth, or it might engage with questions of class, national identity, diaspora or colonisation. Note that we’re not necessarily looking for an author whose work is set in Scotland or who has Scottish heritage (although if this were the case, it would not detract from your application). 

 In your application, you will be asked to draw connections between your own work and the impact of being immersed in Scottish culture, nature, literature and/or history, as well as how you hope to connect with Scottish readers at Wigtown Book Festival.

Previous literature residents include Margaret Atwood, Jeanine Leane, Caroline Brothers, Anne Carson, Rachel Cusk, Alasdair Gray, Roanna Gonsalves, Christos Tsiolkas and Yang Lian.

Open to Varuna alumni members only.

The fellowship includes:

• $2,200 towards airfares between Australia and Scotland

• private accommodation on Cove Park’s 50-acre rural site on Scotland’s west coast

• a weekly allowance of £150 per week towards food (this residency is self-catering).

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FINE PRINT

As part of the terms of their residency, successful applicants will also be required to submit a one-page report of their stay at Cove Park.

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SELECTION CRITERIA

Selection criteria for this program include:

• recency and critical reception of your published work to date

• relevance of your work to the Wigtown Book Festival program

• how you may benefit from this residency

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ABOUT COVE PARK

Cove Park is an international residency based on an outstanding 50-acre rural site in Argyll on Scotland’s west coast. Their programme of residencies, commissions, and collaborative projects respond to and promote the diversity of contemporary artistic practice. They support artists, creative practitioners, and researchers to develop and produce ambitious, innovative, and ground-breaking new work for audiences and participants across Scotland and beyond.

It’s important that applicants realise that Cove Park is in a remote area of Western Scotland. The journey from Australia to Scotland is a minimum 25 hours flying time, and additional travel on public transport is required between Glasgow airport and Cove Park. The terrain of the grounds of Cove Park is steep, and internet and mobile signals may not be available.

Please read more important details about the residency in Scotland before applying.

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TESTIMONIALS

“I got thoroughly stuck in to working on what will be my fourth novel, really making an effort now to step back and change direction as a novelist and try to apply techniques and approaches I used in my previous career as a playwright.

I sincerely hope this program is able to keep running. Alexia and the team at Cove Park are an absolute delight and it was a real pleasure to get to know them. I really appreciated the opportunity to meet with some local Scottish novelists at a lunch which Alexia at Cove Park kindly organised for me.

And I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Wigtown Book Festival which was extremely well-run and author friendly. ”

— Brooke Robinson, Cove Park fellowship 2024

Brooke Robinson

This project is a partnership between Varuna the National Writers’ House of Australia, and Cove Park in Scotland, and is supported by The Bridge Awards and Wigtown Book Festival.

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