Airini Beautrais wins 2016 Landfall Essay Competition
The poet and PhD Creative Writing has won first place in this year's competition. Second place went to fellow PhD Creative Writing Michalia Arathimos.
Airini Beautrais has been named the winner of the 2016 Landfall Essay Competition for her essay 'Umlaut'.
Second place went to the novelist, short story writer, poet and editor Michalia Arathimos who also holds a PhD Creative Writing from Victoria. Third place went to Carolyn Cossey. The three essays will be published in Landfall 232 in November.
Competition judge David Eggleton said that Beautrais' essay stood out as 'written by someone unwilling to be boring, willing to take risks, and enough of a seasoned practitioner to carry it off with sustained verve.
'"Umlaut" is dextrous, exuberant and comical, if sardonic...Sometimes verging on slapstick, nevertheless it’s a tour de force of a kind.'
Airini said that had initially considered the umlaut in her children's surname to be a good subject for a poem but 'the notes I put together seemed to lend themselves to an essay. As I wrote it and considered the issues around names, language and culture I found a lot of anger surfaced, but also a lot of humour. I was surprised how emotional this piece of writing became for me.'
Airini has published three books of poetry: Secret Heart (2006, winner of the NZSA Jessie Mackay award for best first book of poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards), Western Line (2011) and Dear Neil Roberts (2014, longlisted for the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards). She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters and her poetry and short fiction has appeared in a range of print and online journals. In 2016 she was shortlisted for the Sarah Broom poetry prize.
The Landfall Essay Competition is judged 'blind' by Landfall editor David Eggleton. The winner receives $3000 and a year's subscription to Landfall. There were 51 essays submitted for the 2016 competition.
(From a media release issued by Otago University Press. Enquiries: telephone: +64 3 479 9094 or email: publicity@otago.ac.nz.)