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Supplied/Stuff Acclaimed Samoan-New Zealand poet and performer Tusiata Avia with her award-winning poetry collection, The Savage Coloniser Book. As a 10-year-old growing up in Christchurch, she discovered her penchant for prose through a school teacher who devoted half the class time to poetry writing. But by the time she was 15, Avia felt compelled to put the craft aside. “It was 1981 in Christchurch under a Muldoon​ government, and it was not a friendly time to be Samoan or brown of any shade,” Avia said. “I just got the message from everywhere that brown girls like me didn’t ...

84-year-old adds Ockham's Māori Language Award to a life of extraordinary achievement.

A lot of "blood sweat and tears" went into the book's creation.

Airini Beautris: Ockham's winner on Bug Week, back-stabbing, motherhood and pole dancing 14 May, 2021 08:00 PM 9 minutes to read Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais has won the coveted fiction prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards with a "provocative" collection of short stories. Photo / Marcel Tromp Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais has won the coveted fiction prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards with a "provocative" collection of short stories. Photo / Marcel Tromp By: Joanna Mathers Airini Beautrais, this year's Jann Medlicott Acorn for Fiction winner at the 2021 Ockham awards, ...

The thing about short stories is that there is nowhere to hide. A short story has to work hard, saying a lot by saying very little. Whether she is writing about or from the perspective of a little girl, a spurned lover, an ageing madam, or, astonishingly, a toroa (albatross), Beautrais nails an authentic voice each time. With a spiky confidence and knowing, mordant humour, Beautrais writes with a crushing and witty eye on humanity at its most troubled and askew. We all agreed it’s a tightly wound and remarkably assured collection that sustains a vice-like grip from start to finish. These at...