Welcome back the NZ Book Awards with a gift for fiction

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New Zealand Book Awards Return with Major Fiction Prize

After a 12-month hiatus, the country’s premier book awards will return in 2016 with a new structure, a new judging process and a significant, annual fiction prize of $50,000.

The New Zealand Book Awards winners will be announced at an event during the country’s largest literary gathering – the Auckland Writers Festival – in May 2016.

The New Zealand Book Awards Trust chair, Nicola Legat, says she is delighted to announce the changes, and in particular the major fiction award, which is provided by the Acorn Foundation, through the generosity of one of its donors.

“It creates a tremendous and lasting literary legacy. The sum of $50,000 will be awarded to the top fiction work annually, in perpetuity. This will make a difference not only to the receiving writer, but also to the literary fabric of New Zealand. It is a huge gift for us all.”

The Acorn Foundation is a Western Bay of Plenty-based community foundation that encourages people to leave bequests in their wills, or gifts during their lifetimes.

Acorn Foundation’s Operation’s Manager, Margot McCool, says it is humbling to witness such generosity.

“Since 2003 we have been encouraging generosity, so that people who really care about their community can fulfil their wish of enabling organisations and causes they believe in. We are so pleased that this award will make such a difference to New Zealand novelists’ careers,” says Mrs McCool.

In addition to an annual fiction winner, there will be a poetry, a general non-fiction and an illustrated non-fiction winner and, should there be sufficient entries, a Māori language award. The three Best First Book Awards will also continue.

Ms Legat added that including the awards in the Auckland Writers Festival programme ensures they reach more people.

“The New Zealand Book Awards will be the first public event in the festival’s line-up. With the festival growing exponentially year-on-year (55 percent in 2014 and a further 17 percent in 2015), we are taking New Zealand writers to a huge reading audience.”

Auckland Writers Festival director Anne O’Brien says embracing the New Zealand Book Awards was a natural fit.

“The festival is committed to sharing a love of books and reading and to championing and supporting New Zealand writers through exposure to thousands of festival-goers each year.  The New Zealand Book Awards are a celebration of writing excellence and we’re delighted to offer them a home in the festival’s programme,” says Ms O’Brien.

The four main categories will be judged by specialist judges, three per category, plus a Maori language adviser for the Maori language awards.  The judges will select a long list of around eight books in each category. It will be announced in November 2015.

The shortlist of four books in each of the categories will be announced in early March 2016.

“The changes to the judging process are a direct result of the consultation process carried out by the Book Awards Trust in 2014. Having fewer books for each judge to read, and having more specialist depth in each genre, will allow a more detailed examination of the works,” says Ms Legat.

The call for entries in the awards is scheduled for August 1 this year.

For interview opportunities and further information please contact: Penny Hartill, director, hPR 09 445 7525, 021 721 424, penny@hartillpr.co.nz

Full article go here

Dunedin’s Writers Salon

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Please join us for our next
Writers Salon

Please join us for our next Writers Salon

Monday July 6th, 2015
The Thistle Café and Bar, 23 The Octagon

Featured writers:

Breton Dukes
reading from his novel in progress, Betty Dean

Emma Neale
reading from ‘The How Do We Begin,’ a prose/poetry extract from a longer work, Billy Bird
(published in Landfall 229)

Neville Peat
reading an essay from Wild Central, and a narrative from Coasting: The Sea Lion and the Lark

All welcome

Please come at 6.00 pm if wish to eat.
Readings start at 7.00 pm.

A shameless plug for poetry

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My book The Letter Box Cat and other poems is a finalist — most unusual to have poetry there. So this seems like a golden opportunity to make a national show of children’s hands for poetry. Do get children to vote! (the other books are excellent too, I have to say!). So few children’s poetry books get published here. Bottom of rung in my view.

Only children can vote.

2015 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults

Children’s Choice 

Would you like to choose the winners in the 2015 New Zealand Children and Young Adults Book Awards?

 

Be part of the Children’s Choice voting and have your chance to vote for the New Zealand books you think are the best.

Children and teenagers across the country have been busy reading and reviewing their favourites amongst all the New Zealand books entered in the 2015 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Their votes created a list of 20 books they think are the best.

So get voting: we want to know what New Zealand kids think. Choose your favourite in the Top 5 in each category that’s relevant to your age group. (We have adult judges separately deciding on the overall winners, but we also want to know what kids think are the best books.)

Everyone kid who votes (you’ll need to be 18 years old or under) will be in the draw to win some books for yourself and for your school. On the second page we will ask you questions to help us contact you via your school if you win. If you are unsure about anything ask mum or dad or your teacher to help you.

Voting closes at 12 noon on Friday, 31 July.

So vote now and tell your friends to vote too. Just click here to vote!

Voting button

Congratulations to Flash Fiction Day winners

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Congratulations to Frankie McMillan of Christchurch

and Leanne Radojkovich of Auckland

who took top honours in this year’s competition!

And to all Highly Commended writers and

Regional Prize winners, too, posted on

the NFFD Winners page, along with judges’ comments.

All sixteen long-listed stories from this year’s competition will be published in a special winter edition of Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction.

THANK YOU! 

Special thanks to Owen Marshall and Fiona Kidman for so generously sharing their time and wisdom.

Thanks to the NZ Society of Authors branches who support the Regional Awards. A great deal of individual effort has gone into organising the gifts and awards that the branches donate, and it’s thanks to branch chairs and members that this part of NFFD is a growing success.
Thanks to Designlab in Auckland for our logo and banner images. We’re handsome and shiny because of you!

Thanks to the bookshops around NZ who support our efforts — Jason Books in Auckland, Unity Books in Wellington, University Bookshop in Dunedinand Scorpio Books in Christchurch.

And thanks, finally but hugely, to our event organisers, volunteers, proxy readers and MCs — NFFD would be nothing without you! Here’s to this year’s success, and to you!

Margaret Cahill

Maryrose Doull 

James George

Eileen Merriman

Nod Ghosh

Trisha Hanifin

Tim Heath

Katherine Honeyman

Brindi Joy

Graeme Lay

James Norcliffe

Catherine Robertson

Morrin Rout

Owen Scott

Rebecca Styles

Sian Williams

Ana Worner

Morgan Bach’s launch at Wellington’s award-winning Unity Books -Would love to be there for this! Can’t wait to read it

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Victoria University Press warmly invites to the launch of

Some of Us Eat the Seeds
by Morgan Bach

6pm–7.30pm on Thursday 16 July
at Unity Books, 57 Willis St, Wellington.

About Some of Us Eat the Seeds:
Morgan Bach weaves a line between waking life and the unstable dreamworld beneath, disorienting and reorienting us from moment to moment. In poems of childhood, family, travel and relationships, she responds to the ache and sometimes horror of life in a voice that is restless and witty, bold and sharp-edged.

‘It’s ordinary and extraordinary. It’s the kind of arrival that delights me.’ – Bernadette Hall

Simon Armitage wins Oxford Professor of Poetry election

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from The Guardian

Popular British poet selected for prestigious post ahead of strong field including Wole Soyinka

Simon Armitage: keen to discuss ‘poetry’s relationship with the civilian world’.
Simon Armitage: keen to discuss ‘poetry’s relationship with the civilian world’. Photograph: Gareth Phillips for the Guardian

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The British poet Simon Armitage has seen off an international field to be chosen as Oxford’s latest professor of poetry.

Speaking to the Guardian after the announcement, Armitage said he was “delighted and very excited and suitably daunted as well”.

“It’s been such a long process,” he said. “In the time it’s taken we’ve had a general election, Sepp Blatter has come and gone and come again, and we’ve nearly got a new leader of the Labour party.”

He said he would try to give students an insight into “what is occasionally quite a muddy world, and a muddy art form, remembering that the audience are primarily students, and not to see it as a platform for professorial grandstanding”.

“For me, it’s a chance to say something a little bit more contemporary,” he said. “Often it’s been professors talking about previous generations. I feel as if I’d like to bring thing up to date. To look at poetry today, in dialogue with the poetry of the past.”

The award-winning author of more than 12 collections of poetry, Armitage has been hailed by fellow poet Sean O’Brien as “the first poet of serious artistic intent since Philip Larkin to have achieved popularity”. Combining linguistic inventiveness, streetwise flair and contemporary subjects, he has reached an audience far beyond the literary ghetto with poems, novels, translations of medieval verse and scripts for radio and television.

The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, welcomed the announcement, calling Armitage “a fine, vocational poet and a brilliant communicator for the modern age who never forgets the roots and ancestry of poetry”.

for more see here

Book Trade Awards: Poetry books need great booksellers – Wonderful to see the Parsons Family honoured

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I am delighted to see the Parsons Family honoured at these awards. The Auckland store under the guidance of Helen used to stock the best selection of NZ poetry in a room devoted entirely to NZ books. Bravo Roger and Helen, booksellers extraordinaire.

Book Trade Industry Awards

21 Jun 2015
A renowned family of booksellers were honoured with a lifetime achievement award tonight at the annual Book Industry awards in Auckland, while individual publishers and booksellers were recognised as being the best in the New Zealand  trade.
This year the award was presented to the Parsons Family of Auckland and Wellington for the inter-generational contribution the family have made to the industry.
All of the winners of the Book Trade Industry Awards this year have been applauded by the judges for their dedication to quality – whether in publication, selling, or running events – and passion for the trade. There were six awards given, and for the first time this year, applicants were invited to self-nominate. This allowed some smaller bookstores who didn’t frequently see publishing reps to highlight their own efforts to improve sales for their stores. There was a large number of nominees in this category, making the prize even more desirable.
The judges of the awards were Karen Ferns, Jill Rawnsley, Carolyn Morgan, Graham Beattie and Karren Beanland.
The winners of each category are announced below:
2015 Young Book Retailer of the Year: 
Jenna Todd, Time Out Books, Mt Eden
‘Jenna manages the shop, which had its best ever sales in 2014, in an exemplary manner. Not only does she run their media & social media effectively, the customer testimonials for her work were outstanding,’ said judge Karen Ferns.
2015 Sales Rep of the Year: 
Tammy Ruffell, HarperCollins NZ Lower North Island rep
‘Tammy is tireless in seeking ways to inspire customers, and has shown great leadership and resilience in facing head-on, with those customers, the challenges of the past year (or few),’ said judge Jill Rawnsley.
Marketing Strategy of the Year: 
Penguin Random House NZ, for Chelsea Winter’s Everyday Delicious
‘The winning marketing strategy for 2015 saw an impressive result for the publisher and Chelsea Winter, the author, whose input into the campaign is every bit as contributory to the results. It is a competitive area of publishing, but the team at PRH pulled it off beautifully,’ said Rawnsley.
NZ Book Industry Special Award: 
Bridget Williams Books
‘Bridget Williams Books wins this for their innovative list, and how effectively they have embraced the new digital age. They have proven their commitment to quality non-fiction publishing, publishing the important Tangata Whenua, while launching their new imprint BWB Texts over 2014,’ said Morgan.
Publisher of the Year: 
Potton and Burton Publishers, newly renamed from Craig Potton Publishers
‘Potton and Burton show exceptional commitment to quality in its publishing programme, its production values, its relationships with customers and authors alike, and in the delivery of an essential distribution service. As well as this, the company’s dedication to New Zealand stories shines through in their regularly award-winning books,’ said Rawnsley.
Bookseller of the Year: 
Unity Books, Wellington
‘Unity Books runs 50 events per year, and their support of NZ publishing accounts for 18% of their sales. Unity has proven over the years a great training place for aspiring booksellers. Overall, they win this award for their general excellence, and the special place they occupy in the community,’ said Morgan.
The Book industry is well-served by the passionate booksellers and publishers that are continuing to inspire in a changing environment. The Book Industry Awards are sponsored by PANZ, Nielsen Book and Booksellers NZ, and were administered via Booksellers NZ, by the Book Trade Liasion Committee.