Australian writer Ronnie Scott will be Reykjavík City of Literature‘s writer in residence in September 2022. He was selected out of over 100 applicants from UNESCO Cities of Literature around the world.
Reykjavík City of Literature has invited Melbourne writer Ronnie Scott for a one month stay in Reykjavík in September 2022. This is the third year of the Reykjavík residency for authors from other UNESCO Cities of Literature and Ronnie was selected out of 106 applicants from Cities of Literature around the globe.
Residencies and literary exchanges across borders are among the focus areas of the UNESCO Cities of Literature Network. The aim is to support literary connections between the cities and to stimulate creative discourse among authors and creatives globally. Reykjavík invites a writer or translator to stay and work in the literary house Gröndal‘s House for a month. The guests get a chance to meet with local writers and other artists and locals and to introduce their work at a public event.
Ronnie Scott
Dr. Ronnie Scott is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at RMIT University in Melbourne. His novel The Adversary (2020) was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. He is the author of two books of nonfiction for the National Gallery of Victoria and the Penguin Special Salad Days. He is also a researcher on Folio: Stories of Australian Comics. At Gröndal's House, Ronnie will be working on a new novel about public art and queer social history.
About his upcoming stay in Reykjavík, Ronnie says:
"I'm so excited to be working at Gröndal's House in September. It's interesting to think about Melbourne and Reykjavík's roles as UNESCO Cities of Literature, each with incredible histories and present-day lives as global centres of writing with their own particularities; I can't wait to spend time in Reykjavík to see how they intertwine, their differences and echoes, and to spend a month writing fiction in this historical home, hopefully with my phone turned off after two very connected pandemic years."
We at the Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature are very much looking forward to welcoming Ronnie Scott to Reykjavík and to further strengthening the ties between our literary cities, already close friends in the network of UNESCO Cities of Literature. Melbourne was designated as a UNESCO City of Literature in 2008, three years before Reykjavík joined the network, making both cities among the first five members of the network that now counts 42 cities. The UNESCO Cities of Literature are part of the wider UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
Gröndal’s House
Gröndal’s House is a small house with big history, situated in the oldest part of Reykjavík in the city centre. It was the home of writer, illustrator, translator and scholar Benedikt Gröndal, who lived there from 1888 until his death in 1907. The Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature runs this literary house and residency. Regular literary events and salon readings are hosted in Gröndal's parlours on the main floor, where Gröndal created some of his best-known work, both writings and drawings; the top floor houses offices for local writers, and the residency flat is on the ground floor. The house, owned by the City of Reykjavík, opened after extensive renovations in 2017.