News
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RIP Fleur Adcock 1934-2024
14-10-2024
We are saddened to hear of the passing of ANZL Fellow Fleur Adcock, aged 90, whose style is often described as cool, observational and slyly ironic, and whose talent Carol Ann Duffy described as like ‘a razor blade in a peach’. To one of our most celebrated poets, rest in peace.
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Bidding War for Catherine Chidgey’s Ninth Novel
26-09-2024
Rights to internationally acclaimed New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey’s ninth novel, The Book of Guilt, have been bought by UK publishing house John Murray at a contested auction which will see the novel published in New Zealand and globally in May 2025.
John Murray is one of Britain’s most esteemed publishers. Established in 1768, its publishing canon includes Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Jane Austen’s Emma, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and more recently Booker shortlisted Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies and Stephen Hawking’s final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions.
New Zealand rights for The Book of Guilt remain with Te Herenga Waka University Press, the publishing house behind Catherine Chidgey since her first novel In A Fishbone Church, was published in 1998.
Rights to The Book of Guilt have already been sold to Reagan Arthur for her new Hachette Book Group US imprint, as well as Knopf in Canada, Penguin Random House in Australia and Heyne in Germany.
Catherine Chidgey says she is delighted to be joining John Murray and to see The Book of Guilt strike a chord with so many stellar international publishers.
‘I like to challenge myself with each new book, and I can’t wait for readers to engage with this story – my first foray into dystopian fiction,’ she says.
Catherine says she is excited to be working with Te Herenga Waka University Press for The Book of Guilt and sharing this story with Aotearoa New Zealand readers.
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Ockham NZ Book Awards 2025 Judges’ Announcement
12-09-2024
Award-winning writers, journalists, reviewers, respected academics, curators and booksellers are among the 12 experts selected to judge the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
The $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction will be judged by novelist, short story writer and lecturer in creative writing Thom Conroy (convenor); bookshop owner and reviewer Carole Beu; and author, educator and writing mentor Tania Roxborogh (Ngāti Porou). They will be joined in deciding the ultimate winner from their shortlist of four by an international judge.
Judging the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry will be poet, critic and writer David Eggleton (convenor); poet, novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Smither MNZM; and writer and editor Jordan Tricklebank (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Mahuta).
The General Non-Fiction Award will be judged by author, writer and facilitator Holly Walker (convenor); author, editor and historical researcher Ross Calman (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tahu); and communications professional, writer and editor Gilbert Wong.
The Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction will be judged by former Alexander Turnbull chief librarian and author Chris Szekely (convenor); arts advocate Jessica Palalagi; and historian and social history curator Kirstie Ross.
New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa chair Nicola Legat says each of this year’s judging panels represent a wide range of readers and experts in literature.
“These awards are high stakes for longlisted, shortlisted and winning authors and so it’s critical to get it right. These 12 fine judges have great depths of knowledge and diversities of experience, as befits their responsibilities,” she says.
The New Zealand Book Awards Trust is currently inviting submissions for the second tranche of entries for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Online entries for titles published between 1 September 2024 and 31 December 2024 opened on Thursday 12 September and close 5pm on Wednesday 23 October 2024. Submissions for titles published between 1 January and 31 August 2024 have closed.
Click here for eligibility criteria and a Call for Entries information pack, then enter online here.
Category longlists will be announced on 30 January 2025, and the shortlist of 16 books on 5 March 2025.The finalists and winners will be celebrated on 14 May 2025 at an awards ceremony held as part of the Auckland Writers Festival.
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are supported by Ockham Residential, Creative New Zealand, the late Jann Medlicott MNZM and the Acorn Foundation, Mary and Peter Biggs CNZM, Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand, The Mātātuhi Foundation and the Auckland Writers Festival.
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Moth Short Story Prize Winner announced
30-08-2024
Tracey Slaughter’s ‘reasons to end us (an aerial view)’ has been crowned winner of the £3,000 Moth Short Story Prize. Her story will be published as part of the summer fiction series in the Irish Times. In 2018, Slaughter was awarded second prize for “Postcards are a Thing of the Past”.
The Moth Short Story Prize is an international prize, open to anyone from anywhere in the world, as long as their story is original and previously unpublished. This year’s judge was Louise Kennedy.
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Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship announced!
18-08-2024
Selina Tusitala Marsh has been awarded the 2024 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship. She will be the first female Pacific writer to receive this honour, marking a significant moment in recognising Pacific voices in Aotearoa New Zealand’s literary landscape.
Established in 1970, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship is one of New Zealand’s most prestigious and long-running Fellowships. It offers New Zealand writers the opportunity to live and write for three months or more in Menton, southern France, working on their chosen project or projects. The Fellowship provides a grant of $43,000 to cover travel, insurance, living, and accommodation costs.
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Ockham New Zealand Books Awards – Tranche #1 submissions open
14-08-2024
The 2025 awards are now open for entries for books published between 1 January 2024 and 31 August 2024. Entries close at 5pm on Wednesday 11 September 2024. Books published from 1 September – 31 December 2024 can be entered in tranche 2. For more information and the entry form, go here.
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Prague UNESCO City of Literature Residency 2025 – applications open
22-07-2024
Do you have a breathtaking project you would like to work on during your residency in Prague? Prague City of Literature offers an opportunity to writers and translators to live and work in the beautiful city centre where historical architecture meets modern and vibrant city life. This call goes for eight two-month residencies in 2025 which will be held in:
- January–February
- March–April
- May–June
- July–August
- September – October
- November – 15th December
The applicants can send their materials via the online application form . The general terms and conditions can be found here . The call for applications closes August 20, 2024, 11.59 pm CET . Results will be announced on October 31, 2024.
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Mātātuhi Foundation New Criteria, New Funding
16-07-2024
Could your project be the perfect match for our literary grant funding? Mātātuhi Foundation is excited to announce that grant applicants can now apply for up to $20,000 in funding in our October funding round, which closes on 31 October 2024. In previous years, the maximum grant per project was $5,000.
Since its launch in 2018, the Mātātuhi Foundation has funded close to 60 projects and awarded more than $360,000 of grant monies to the literary sector. Skill building, digital resource development, facilitating youth access to NZ books and authors, celebrating excellence in writing along with preservation of NZ legacy texts have been just some of the projects that we have proudly supported.
Highlights Summary:
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Our latest funding round is now OPEN and closes on 31 October 2024
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Applications for up to $20,000 in funding will be accepted
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All applications must meet one or more of the new priority areas – Sustainable Platform for NZ literature, NZ Children’s Literature, NZ Literary Legacy
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We will accept applications from past recipients
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Project leads must have a strong track record in execution and delivering measurable outcomes
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All applications must be submitted via our online form
All applications should be via our online form. For more information on applications, funding successes and criteria, please visit our website or contact us by email on info@matatuhifoundation.co.nz.
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Michael King Writers’ Centre 2025 Writers in Residence – Apply Now!
01-07-2024
The Michael King Writers Centre is pleased to announce that next year’s programme of residencies at the historic Signalman’s House on Takarunga Mt Victoria in Devonport, Auckland, is now open for applications. Writers awarded a residency can look forward to peaceful accommodation, the use of a writing studio, a supporting stipend and the opportunity to focus on a specific writing project.
The 2025 programme offers 16 residencies to emerging and established writers for periods of two to four weeks. Awarded residencies will include up to four specifically for Māori or Pasifika writers.
Applications open Thursday 27 June and close Monday 29 July. For the application form and more details see here
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NZSA Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship – applications open
14-06-2024
The Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship is awarded each year to a mid-career or senior writer to work on a project that shows a high level of literary merit and national significance and is donated by Peter Beatson. Open to writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama who are currently working on a new project. The annual award of $10,000 is open from 14 June to 20 August 2024.
Applicants must be members of the NZ Society of Authors. More information below, or email the national office.
Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship information
Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship Application form (application form will be active from 14 June 2024)
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Call for Ockhams 2025 Judges
06-06-2024
It may be one of the most rewarding reading jobs in the country: judging the annual Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. And with this year’s award ceremony barely behind us, the New Zealand Book Awards Trust is already calling for expressions of interest in being one of 12 judges of the 2025 awards.
Suitable judges need a deep knowledge of New Zealand literature, which is why applications are welcomed from the literature community and from members of the public with relevant experience. Writers, former publishers, editors, festival organisers, academics, curators, teachers, reviewers, critics, booksellers and librarians all have the expertise they are looking for.
If you think you fit the bill, or know someone who does, more information and expressions of interest forms can be downloaded from their website or supplied on request by emailing the Trust manager. Applications close at 5pm on Thursday 27 June.
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Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2024 Winners Announced
16-05-2024
Congratulations to all the writers who made it through to last night’s prizegiving, and to those who won the final prize categories, in particular ANZL members Emily Perkins and Gregory O’Brien.
Internationally acclaimed New Zealand writer Emily Perkins MNZM has won the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for Lioness – a smart, multi-layered, laugh-out-loud novel exploring wealth, class and female mid-life reckoning. Ms Perkins received the award ahead of Booker-Prize winning author and screenwriter Eleanor Catton (Birnam Wood); and Pip Adam (Audition) and Stephen Daisley (A Better Place) – both previous winners of the Acorn Prize for Fiction. Published by Bloomsbury UK, Wellington resident Emily Perkins last won New Zealand’s top fiction prize in 2009 with Novel About My Wife.
Writer, poet, artist and curator Gregory O’Brien MNZM has won the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction for Don Binney: Flight Path (Auckland University Press). Category convenor Lynn Freeman says even as an experienced biographer, Gregory O’Brien has achieved a near impossible task in Don Binney: Flight Path. “He has encapsulated the artist’s full life, honestly portraying his often contrary personality, and carefully interrogating a formidably large body of work and its place in Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa chair Nicola Legat saysthis year’s winners fully demonstrate the relevance of books to the issues of our times.
“Drawn from an extraordinary group of shortlisted titles in a very competitive year, all these books truly deserve the honours bestowed on them. They are by turns witty, timely, insightful, searing, scholarly, political and loving. They have each, in their own way, moved the dial. The Trust congratulates the publishers of these impressive and beautifully produced titles,” she says.
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are supported by Ockham Residential, Creative New Zealand, the late Jann Medlicott and the Acorn Foundation, Mary and Peter Biggs CNZM, Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand, the Mātātuhi Foundation, and the Auckland Writers Festival.
The awards ceremony was hosted at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in Aotea Centre, as part of the 2024 Auckland Writers Festival programme.
To find out more about the winners’ titles follow this link.
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The Arts Foundation 2024 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship – applications open
29-04-2024
For over fifty years, since 1970, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship has allowed an established New Zealand writer to live and write for three months or more in Menton in southern France. There, they have access to the writing room in Villa Isola Bella where Katherine Mansfield once lived and worked. The residency is open to creative writers across all genres including fiction, children’s fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction and playwriting. The successful applicant will become an Arts Foundation Laureate. Previous recipients include Charlotte Grimshaw, Paula Morris, Carl Nixon, Kate Camp, Anna Jackson, Mandy Hager, Greg McGee, Justin Paton, Chris Price, Ken Duncum, Damien Wilkins, Jenny Pattrick, Stuart Hoar, Dame Fiona Kidman, Ian Wedde and other prestigious writers such as Bill Manhire, Janet Frame, Witi Ihimaera, Elizabeth Knox, Lloyd Jones, Roger Hall, Marilyn Duckworth, Michael King and Allen Curnow. Applications for the Fellowship are open until 14th June 2024.
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Sargeson Short Story Prize 2024 – open for entries
12-04-2024
First offered in 2019, the Sargeson Prize is New Zealand’s richest short story prize, sponsored by the University of Waikato. Named for celebrated New Zealand writer Frank Sargeson, the Prize was conceived by writer Catherine Chidgey, who also lectures in Writing Studies at the University.
The Open Division is open to New Zealand citizens or permanent residents aged 16 and over who are writing in English. Published and unpublished writers are welcome to enter. Entries must be single stories of no more than 5000 words. They must be original, unpublished pieces of work. First Prize: $10,000, Second Prize: $1,000, Third Prize: $500.
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It’s time to register for Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2024!
28-03-2024
Mark your calendars! The date for this year’s nationwide celebration of poetry is scheduled for Friday 23 August. Registrations and seed funding applications are now open, and event organisers across the motu are encouraged to get involved and celebrate Aotearoa’s growing and vibrant poetry scene. In its 27th year, Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day has established itself as a prominent and popular event in the literary calendar that promises an explosion of poetry countrywide in late August.
Registration forms, templates, planning and marketing resources are all available on the NPD website. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to showcase your love for poetry and engage with your community in a meaningful way. Join us in making Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2024 a memorable and successful celebration of creativity and expression.
Applications for seed funding close at 5pm on 4 June 2024. The official Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2024 calendar will be announced on 1 August. For further information contact NPD national coordinator Gill Hughes at poetryday@nzbookawards.org.nz and to keep up with plans for NPD 2024, follow NZPoetryDay on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).
'Many of our best stories profit from a meeting of New Zealand and overseas influences' - Owen Marshall