Following an open call for applications in Autumn 2022, Ayisha Malik was awarded a 3-week funded residency. Cove Park’s programme of funded residencies support research, the development of existing and new projects, collaboration, interdisciplinary practice, and the production of new work and ideas. All national and international artists, cultural practitioners, and researchers, working individually and collaboratively in all art forms, in the creative industries, and across disciplines, were eligible to apply. Cove Park’s residencies also support individuals at every stage in their careers.

Ayisha Malik has been awarded a three week residency at Cove Park. She is author of critically acclaimed novels Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, The Other Half of Happiness, This Green and Pleasant Land and The Movement She was a WHSmith Fresh Talent Pick and Sofia Khan was a London CityReads choice. Her contributions have included, A Change is Gonna Come, A Matchmade in Heaven and the Sunday Times bestselling Conversations in Love. She has written a re-telling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Part – part of Hachette’s Awesomely Austen children’s series – and the children’s book Seven Sisters. Malik is winner of The Diversity Book Awards and has been shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Award, Marie Claire’s Future Shapers Awards and h100’s Awards for Publishing and Writing. She is also recipient of the Society of Authors’ Travelling Scholarship. Sofia Khan is not Obliged and The Movement are optioned for television.   

Malik is also a part of the Professional Writing Academy team and teaches fiction courses for Faber Academy and Curtis Brown Creative. She aims to use her time at Cove Park to work on her next novel, pushing herself into a potentially experimental direction. 

Image provided by the artist.