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Share Members of the Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington community won six of the eight annual awards at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards last night. Five of the winners are alumni of the University’s renowned International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) Creative Writing Master’s programme, while the sixth is an emeritus professor in the University’s English programme. Three of the winning books were published by Victoria University Press (VUP). “To have five winning graduates from the International Institute of Modern Letters indicates that our reputation as the best place to learn creative writing in Aotearoa New Zealand is well earned. It is truly outstanding to see our alumni leading in their chosen field,” says Professor Sarah Leggott, Dean of the University’s Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. ....
Press Release – Ockham Book Awards The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards is a highly anticipated event on the annual arts calendar, and one category that continues to gain interest is the Best First Book Awards, sponsored by MitoQ. The Best First Book Awards recognise work of quality by an author for whom the entry is their first published book. For the third year running, MitoQ has sponsored the category, giving new writers a financial boost and recognition to help them focus on pursuing a writing career. The Best First Book Awards category has seen steady growth in submission numbers since its introduction to the Book Awards in 1996. In 2021, 50 books entered were from debut authors, nearly a third of all submissions. ....
Composite: Stuff Airini Beautrais’ Bug Week is the first short story collection to win the Acorn Prize in over a decade, and the second ever. First-time nominee Airini Beautrais was awarded the country’s premier fiction prize at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards on Wednesday night. The Whanganui-based author beat out two previous winners and a previous nominee to win the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, becoming the first winner for a collection of short stories in over a decade. Beautrais took out the $57,000 prize for Bug Week, her first work of prose following four books of poetry. It is only the second ever short story collection to win the Acorn Prize. ....
Fiso won the first book award for illustrated non-fiction for her Hiakai: Modern Māori “ Hiakai weaves understanding of our unique environment, hunting, foraging, cooking, eating and preserving into an expansive but very accessible offering. Fiso does not shy away from unusual ingredients and this makes it all the more fascinating,” judge Dale Cousens said. Kerr won for her Ross Giblin/Stuff Chef Monique Fiso at her restaurant Hiakai. Judge Kiran Dass said Kerr’s novel impressed with its “big-hearted social realism . which follows the quiet heroics of a widowed solo mother of squeezed means”. “Sensitively examining the emotional and mental labour of being careful with money and the blind spots people have when they don’t need to worry about it, this quietly powerful novel is about privilege, community, compassion and care,” Dass said. ....
Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais has won the premier award at the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for her book Bug Week - it s her first book of fiction and it s also the first time the category has been won by a collection of short stories in more than a decade. Airini Beautrais. Photo: Tracy Grant Beautrais won the $57,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction with a book that convenor of judges Kiran Dass described as a knockout from start to finish. Casting a devastating and witty eye on humanity at its most fallible and wonky, this is a tightly-wound and remarkably assured collection. Atmospheric and refined, these stories evoke a strong sense of quiet unease, slow burning rage and the absurdly comic, Dass said. ....