Announcement of 2026 Scottish Writing Fellowship, in conjunction with Mātai Airana, Mātai Kotirana - the Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies (CISS)

By Caselberg Trust | Posted: Monday Dec 01, 2025

Donald will be staying at Caselberg House in August 2026.

Scottish writer Donald S Murray says he is thrilled and honoured to be awarded a fellowship in Dunedin next year. He will be in the position in August and September 2026.

Stuart Chair in Scottish Studies and Director of CISS, Professor Liam McIlvanney, says he is hugely excited at the appointment.

“To have a writer and teacher of Donald’s range, experience and accomplishment with us in Dunedin will be a tremendous boon to our students and indeed to the wider community.

“I have no doubt, too, that, as a native speaker of Gaelic, Donald will be keen to kōrero with tangata whenua on issues of shared concern such as language revitalisation.”

Liam say it is thanks to the generosity of the Stuart Residence Halls Council that they can offer this Fellowship, and he is deeply grateful for the support.

Now a full-time writer living in Shetland, Donald was raised in the Ness district of the Isle of Lewis, where he sees some similarities with New Zealand.

“As an islander from Scotland, surrounded for much of my life by the ocean, its force and fury occasionally preventing me from leaving the shores of my home, I know that my past life will have something in common with those that live in New Zealand.

“There will be much too, however, that is different and unusual, granting me additional and exciting insights I would never have imagined possessing before.”

His writing, both of fiction and non-fiction, has received widespread critical acclaim and appeared on shortlists and longlists for numerous literary awards.

The full article can be found here: https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/scottish-writer-an-exciting-appointment-for-otago-fellowship