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Whispers of the supernatural await a visiting writer stepping into the former home of a prominent playwright.
Incoming 2026 Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage resident Josiah Morgan (Kāi Tahu/Ngāti Maniapoto), of Ōtautahi Christchurch, believes buildings hold the memories of their past inhabitants.
The legacy of Lord will likely affect his two-week stay in late September.
Morgan, a queer writer and theatre maker, arrives in the city with a firm conviction in the supernatural.
“I really believe in, for want of a better word, hauntings and ghosts,” Morgan said.
“And the idea that spaces kind of hold memories and feelings of the past.”
Previous residents had told him the cottage strongly evoked Lord’s physical presence as a tall man.
“I’m quite curious about that experience, you know, of being able to so clearly situate yourself in relationship to a house that was clearly designed for a person of a particular height and stature, but then also carrying in the history of his legacy, both as a queer writer myself, but also as a theatre maker.”
“I don’t know exactly how I’ll be affected, but I’m absolutely confident that there’ll be some sort of impact because I believe that that’s what happens in spaces over time anyway.’’
Lord lived in New York during the 1970s and 1980s before dying of an AIDS-related illness.
Morgan shares Lord’s background of articulating queer experiences and during the residency, he aims to work on what he anticipates will be a long poem of up to 100 pages.
“I’m going to be focusing on a work that is at the moment called Moa, which is the working title, which is about a human, a Māori human subject in the South Island of New Zealand who attempts to surgically transform their body into the body of a moa.
“It kind of draws on body horror imagery, as well as queer histories of transformation and body modification.
“I was interested in what would happen if someone does literally attempt to surgically evoke a lost creature that is evocative of colonisation and of a kind of imaginary past.’’
He had previously visited Dunedin for performance projects during the summer but looked forward to working in the city’s cooler climate.
“The city design being just ripped from another city on top of a kind of incomprehensible landscape by itself is quite interesting.”
While the worst of the winter chill could be over, he looked forward to experiencing how Dunedin's darker seasonal environment might influence his text.
“I’m really interested in the tension between darkness and then how things function on a day-to-day level.”
He plans to maintain a strict daily schedule of writing and reading, alongside attending the New Zealand Young Writers Festival Wānaka at Puketeraki Marae during his second week.
“I really do love Dunedin and I just can’t wait to be there. I just love the city.”