Prolific Wellington writer Marilyn Duckworth has won the 2004 Foxton Fellowship. She collects a $5000 cash prize, plus a month’s free accommodation in a cottage at Foxton Beach, on the Kapiti Coast.

Duckworth has published twelve novels since 1959, and released her best-selling memoir, Camping On The Faultline, in 2000. The title refers to her hectic life: two countries, forty-nine houses (and a shelter shed), twelve schools, four husbands, and passing lovers. Her sister is the poet Fleur Adcock.

The Foxton Fellowship is offered by the New Zealand Society of Authors, who reported an impressive number of applications from both emerging and well-established writers.