UNDER ROUGH RIDGE
Writers' Retreat
TRUSTEES
All of the trustees are keen readers and writers who live
either part-time or year round in the Ida Valley. Between them, they organise and administer the annual writers' retreat and the Mike Riddell Writer's Residency.
Rosemary Riddell, LLB, LTCL
Rose was a District Court Judge based in Hamilton 2006-2020, She is the author of To Be Fair: Confessions of a District Court Judge, director of award winning short film Cake Tin and feature film, The Insatiable Moon, which won best actor and best supporting actor at 2010 NZ Film Awards. Rose is also a public speaker and Chair of Under Rough Ridge Writers’ Trust.
Bridget Auchmuty, BA(Hons), MCW
Bridget has been writing fiction and poetry ever since she could hold a pen, and never really wanted to do anything else. After graduating from University College London she worked as a journalist and then a secondary school teacher of English. She came to Aotearoa NZ in 1987 and has a Master’s degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Massey. She's won several national short story competitions and her poetry collection was longlisted for the Kathleen Grattan Award in 2013. She developed, and for many years taught, the fiction component of the Creative Writing degree programme at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology and was also a tutor in poetry at Massey University. Her two completed novels lurk unpublished in a bottom drawer. She is secretary to the Trust and also a qualified Feldenkrais Practitioner.
Dougal Rillstone, BCom
Dougal was born close to the Mataura River in Gore, in 1949. He is an accomplished fly fisher, and in 1998 he was individual champion at the Oceania Fly Fishing Championships, held in the Snowy Mountains, Australia. His writing has been been published in Gray’s Sporting Journal and Midcurrent in the USA, FlyLife Magazine in Australia, and The Complete FlyFisherman in South Africa. In New Zealand his work has appeared in Wilderness Magazine, Fresh Ink, The Spinoff, Newsroom and 1964—Mountain Culture. His book, Upstream on the Mataura, is a chronicle of his 240-kilometre walk beside the river from the coast at Fortrose to its source in the Eyre Mountains. In 2020 Upstream was shortlisted for the NZSA Heritage Writing Awards.
Dougal lives in Dunedin and the Ida Valley. He has a degree from The
University of Otago, and is the Trust treasurer.
Jenny Beck BA (Hons), LLB (Hons), BTh (Hons)
Little did Jenny know when she attended the Writers’ Retreat in 2020 that she was shortly to buy a house in the Valley and become an integral part of its writing community. She’s written all her life: initially magazine and newspaper articles and latterly her memoir which will hopefully see the light of day soon! She’s also happily active on social media.
A committed reader of all sorts, there’s very little Jenny likes better than sharing titles and reading experiences over a cup of tea. She’s a lawyer by occupation, practising as Jenny Beck Law from Dunedin, but more importantly she’s the lucky Mum of seven sons and Granny of nearly nine.
Jenny opens her house in the village to the annual Mike Riddell Writer/s in Residence.
Jillian Sullivan, BA(Hons), MCW
Jillian’s thirteen published books include creative non-fiction, novels, short stories and poetry. She’s taught fiction and creative non-fiction in New Zealand and America. Her awards include the Juncture Memoir Award and Highlights Fiction Award in America, the Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems, the NZSA Beatson Fellowship, and a Creative NZ Fellowship Fund. She holds a Master of Creative Writing, Distinction, from Massey University and a Certificate in Contemporary Music Performance, Her latest book is Map for the Heart: Ida Valley Essays, Otago University Press. www.jilliansullivan.co.nz
Paula Wagemaker, BA(Hons)
After earning a BA Hons (1st class) from Otago University, Paula worked as assistant editor at McIndoe’s in Dunedin under the tutelage of this publishing house’s then editor Brian Turner. From there, she moved into senior editorial and managerial positions with US- and Wellington-based publishers, before switching to freelance editing in the late 1980s. Across time, she has worked with dozens of NZ and overseas clients, on projects ranging from lengthy international reports to novels and poetry. Paula also co-developed and taught face-to-face and online versions of Whitireia Polytechnic’s Diploma in Publishing, and later independently wrote and tutored the polytechnic’s online Postgraduate Certificate of Editing. She has co-authored several books, including a comprehensive history of Ōtūrēhua’s Gilchrist Store, recently ventured into ghostwriting, and is a member of the Australasian
Institute of Professional Editors. As an editor, Paula particularly values the mentoring and collaboration aspects of working with authors. Having observed significant changes in publishing technology and practice during her career, she is now observing with interest the
impact of artificial intelligence.
RIP
Brian Turner 4/3/44 - 5/2/25
Former poet laureate, environmental activist and much loved member of our community in Ōtūrēhua, Brian Turner, ONZM, was one of our founding trustees and played a large part in the first few years of the writers' retreat. Even after his Alzheimer's diagnosis, he still enjoyed meeting retreatants and discussing their work over coffee at Hayes. Sadly, he died in February 2025 and is much missed.
"I am entranced with life"
