Dunedin writer Kathryn van Beek certainly hopes so.
She has been awarded the Winston Churchill McNeish Writers’ Fellowship, which will fund her trip to Hungary for a month-long writer’s residence in the city of Pecs in June.
It will be another chapter in a "magical year" for the award-winning author, who will begin her tenure as this year’s Robert Burns Fellow tomorrow.
"I think it will be incredibly enriching, this whole year," Ms van Beek said.
She unashamedly admitted when she received the news about the Hungarian residency "it was a screaming-down-the-phone situation".
"It’s unimaginable to do this without that support [of the fellowship]," she said.
"It will be my big OE."
Ms van Beek had spent recent weeks researching the Central European country and had stumbled across some unusual tidbits.
She was looking forward to trying sour cherry soup, a chilled summer delicacy, made with fruit, sour cream and sugar.
And among the local wildlife would be raccoon dogs, small, heavy-set fox-like creatures, which are an invasive species abundant across Hungary.
Ms van Beek’s love nature has been at the forefront of her writing.
Her recent short-story collection Pet was well received and her rescue of Bruce the cat, whom she found at the side of the road when he was just a day old, became an internet sensation and resulted in two children’s books.
Ms van Beek planned to work on her newest short stories — a collection titled Delight — while overseas.
While she hoped to take advantage of the opportunity to write, she was also keen to venture into the unknown on the hunt for new experiences.
"They say write what you know but I don’t want to write stories about administrators dealing with the drudgery of domestic life," she said.
