Successful recipients of the 2025 Contestable Fund Grants announced.

12 December 2025

Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) is excited to announce the successful recipients in the 2025 round of Contestable Fund Grants, with a total of $75,000 granted. This year we received 107 applications, the highest ever number of applications for a Cultural Fund award.

Applications were invited for projects that had clearly defined and measurable outcomes that align with the CLNZ Cultural Fund's objectives. The diverse range and high standard of applications this year demonstrates the work the sector is doing to upskill authors, writers, and publishers.

The Contestable Fund is part of CLNZ’s Cultural Fund, which derives revenue from CLNZ’s licensing activity in New Zealand. The Cultural Fund supports people and projects that encourage the development of current and future writers, publishers, and educators.

This year funding contributions were made towards the following 19 projects. Congratulations to the following recipients:

• Age Concern Wellington Region
  Writing and Publishing Project: A Century of Stories – granted $2000.
  

  A Century of Stories is a project which brings to life the stories of Aotearoa’s centenarians. The purpose of this project is to help preserve and share the rich history of Kiwi centenarians, celebrate our past through personal narratives, strengthen intergenerational and community connections, and advocate for New Zealand’s seniors.

• Arts Access Aotearoa Putanga Toi ki Aotearoa
  Online Archive Project: Legacy in Words: Deaf and Disabled Authors of Aotearoa – granted $5000
  

  Through our Taha Hotu Deaf and Disabled Artists Initiative, Arts Access Aotearoa use this funding to develop Legacy in Words, a national online database that records and promotes the published works of Deaf and disabled writers, improving discoverability for readers, educators, publishers and festival programmers.

• Barbarian Productions
  Writing and Publishing Project: Secret Art Powers - Online Accessibility.– granted $5000
  This project is to develop e-book and audiobook Secret Art Powers - Online Accessibility by Jo Randerson (ONZM).
  

• Chye-Ling Huang
  

  Writing and Publishing Project: Fresh off the Page development and playreading events – granted $3000.

  Proudly Asian Theatre presents Fresh off the Page in Pōneke in 2026, where emerging Asian playwrights are mentored across several months to present a draft of a new play to a live audience. The initiative helps to grow visibility, industry and community connection, and tangible professional development for Asian writers.

• Flying Start Books
  Publishing project: Cosmic Comics (First 16 of 96) – granted $5000

  Cosmic Comics by Red Rocket Readers, winner of the CLNZ Contestable Fund Grant, are an exciting new collection of sci-fi fantasy-themed decodable books that blend adventure stories children want to read with structured phonics practice!

• Ghazaleh Golbakhsh
  Writing Project: DisOrient – granted $2000
  DisOrient follows a diasporic traveler across continents and identities, blending creative memoir and personal essays to explore what it means to belong everywhere and nowhere at once.

• Greg Bruce
  Writing and Drawing Project: That Glorious Night– granted $2000
  A non-fiction novel centred on David Lange’s speech at the 1985 Oxford Union debate on the motion that nuclear weapons are morally indefensible – and everything that came after.

• Hana Chatani
  Writing and Publishing Project: Merde! – granted $5000
  Merde! is a short graphic-novel project inspired by the author’s recent and ongoing experience of witnessing her peers leaving the arts sector, largely due to the financial difficulties of continuing to pursue a creative profession in the current climate.

• HUIA Publishers
  Writing and Publishing project: Manu Tuhituhi Rangatahi – granted $4000

  Manu Tuhituhi Rangatahi exists to build promote te ao Māori through the next generation of kaituhi Māori, to invest in the oranga of not only Māori rangatahi but be a beacon to all audiences. The intention is to become the literary counterpart to Ngā Manu Kōrero igniting pride in authentic, creative Māori storytelling

• Karen McMillan
  Awards project: NZ Booklovers Awards 2026 – granted $2000
  The NZ Booklovers Awards promote and celebrate NZ authors and local publishing, with five categories in the latest awards – best adult novel, lifestyle, children’s picture book, junior fiction and young adult.

• Lauren Keenan
  Writing and Publishing Project: Mongoose – granted $2000
  Mongoose is about a murder in a dysfunctional family tarnished by inter-generational trauma and loss of identity. While set in the present day, it reminds the reader that the our past is never far away. And it poses the question: who is Mongoose?

• Melanie Dixon
  Publishing project: Project Management for Creatives – granted $5000
  Project Management for Creatives - a practical guide designed to help creative practitioners bring their ideas to life with clarity and confidence. This book will translate project management tools into accessible strategies to empower creatives to stay organised, protect their spark, and deliver successful projects every time.

• Oratia Books
  Publishing project: Moana Oceania: Tonga – granted $5200
  Moana Oceania: Tonga is part of a series of bilingual books that serve to support, amplify and share cultural knowledge and Pasifika language with children and general readers. In this book, anyone interested in learning about the Oceania kāinga (family) of Aotearoa can read about daily life, culture, history, government, arts, sports and celebrations in Tonga. This publication in English and Lea Faka-Tonga extends the Moana Oceania series by authors from island communities.

• Playmarket
  Writing and Publishing Project: Tiri:Te Araroa – granted $5000
  D
• Samoa House Library
  Writing and Publishing Project: Samoa House Library Anthology (2018-2026) (working title) – granted $5000
  This grant will enable Samoa House Library to produce an anthology that highlights the work of the writers

  and artists engaged with SHL, and reflects its distinctive role as an independent arts library located on Karangahape Road in Tāmaki Makaurau.

• The D*List
  Writing and Publishing Project: D*clarations - developing new disabled voices – granted $5000
  D*clarations will commission new whānau hauā, tāngata whaikaha, Deaf and disabled writers to create stories that live on The D*List online platform. Participants will have the opportunity to work with, and be supported by, a disability-led team with experience in arts, media and disability advocacy. D*clarations is an opportunity for aspiring creatives and writers from intersectional backgrounds to make a powerful statement to their own community and to audiences across Aotearoa.
• The Physics Room
  Writing Project: Attention Studies: writing development programme and publication series. – granted $5000
Facilitated by The Physics Room and Gwynneth Porter, this project will support arts writers to workshop and produce a quick-spirited publication that responds critically to a year of cultural production in Aotearoa.

• Una Cruickshank
  Writing Project: Beware of Mirrors – granted $2000
  D
• Utu ā Matimati
  Writing and Publishing Project: Utu ā Matimati Magazine – granted $5200
  Utu zine is an art magazine showcasing the unique experiences and stories of takatāpui artists in Aotearoa. We interview people about identity and how creativity is a useful tool of self discovery and expression. We also talk about different themes such as indigenous futurisms, mental health and the political landscape. This will be our 4th edition of the zine.

Special thanks to our selection panel judges Abby Aitcheson, Ioana Gordon-Smith and Anne de Lautour who made the following comments about this year’s applications:

“This year brought a record-breaking volume of applications, the vast majority of which were very compelling. I was particularly impressed by the emphasis on highlighting new and under-represented voices through mentorship opportunities, the exciting visual-arts oriented publishing proposals, and the consistently strong quality of manuscripts from individual authors. My sincere thanks to CLNZ and to my fellow panel members for their thoughtful engagement throughout the process. I wish all the applicants the very best as their projects continue to take shape.” – Abby Aitcheson

“It was both encouraging and humbling to encounter such a high calibre of proposals. The projects demonstrated a clear desire to tell and share stories that reflect the aspirations and needs of Aotearoa’s diverse communities. The volume and quality of applications also speak to the resilience of writers and publishers, who continue to create despite increasingly challenging financial and funding conditions.

Our assessment process balanced CLNZ’s criteria with robust discussion about how to best support such exceptional work within the limits of the available funding. We prioritised applications that showed strong potential for direct community impact, and projects that demonstrated capability—either through past delivery of clearly defined and achievable plans. While most grants were only partially funded, distributing support widely was an important way to acknowledge and uplift the sector’s varied and pressing needs..” – Ioana Gordon-Smith.

“Assessing more than100 applications for this important funding round was no easy task. The volume of applications highlights the importance of, and reliance on, external funding that we in the arts sector require to bring our projects to fruition.

The overall standard of the applications was high, and it is heartening to see the level of detail that individuals and organisations include to give a clear picture of the vision, intention, and anticipated benefits to communities.

Many of the planned activities and programmes demonstrate new thinking and will create future opportunities for diverse audiences which in turn benefits the arts sector as a whole.” – Anne de Lautour