Tales from Menton: Charlotte Grimshaw

Batch

18.07.2024

The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi helps to facilitate the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship – allowing a New Zealand writer to live and write for at least three months in Menton, Southern France. Not only do the Fellows receive a grant of $43,000, but access to the writing room in the Villa Isola Bella where Katherine Mansfield once lived and worked. 2023 Fellow and critically-acclaimed New Zealand author, Charlotte Grimshaw is currently in Menton for her residency, and is sharing her on-going travels and snaps with us.

11 June 2024

I have arrived in Menton after travelling through London and Paris. In Paris, I met the very nice team at the New Zealand Embassy. We had coffee and a talk about books, and everything that’s going on in the world. There have just been very interesting elections in Europe, and everyone is watching the rise of the far right (which goes with Trumpism in the US.)

President Biden and President Zelenskyy were in Paris and we watched the parade of Presidents Biden and Macron down the Champs Élysées. It was very hard to get to see it, and we had to make our way through many security cordons.

We took a train to Nice and were driven to our apartment in Menton by William Rubinstein.
I am finding out where everything is, practising my French and looking forward to writing my novel. Next week I will receive the key to the Katherine Mansfield writing room in a ceremony in the Salle a Marriages. Menton is beautiful and I’m ready to start working hard here.

25 June 2024

I’m now established in the flat in Menton, and very happy to be here. I was given the key to the Katherine Mansfield writing room in the Key Ceremony, which was held in the Salle des Marriages in the Menton Town Hall. The Mayor of Menton, Y. Juhel, conducted the ceremony and handed me the key, after which I made a short speech in French.

The writing room has been fixed up, and is a lovely, private, aesthetic space, excellent for working. It’s a short walk from the apartment, so very convenient. I have had wonderful hospitality here, and the place is as beautiful as I remembered. I’m now working hard on my new novel.