Creative Writing graduates and staff on Book Awards shortlist
The finalists for the 2019 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlist include five graduates of Victoria's IIML and a current staff member.
The New Ships, the second novel from Kate Duignan, is shortlisted for the country's most prestigious award for fiction; the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize. Kate is a graduate of the MA and PhD creative writing programmes, and is the 2019 MA Fiction workshop convenor. (The prize was won in 2018 by fellow graduate and IIML staff member Pip Adam.)
MA and PhD Creative Writing graduates Helen Heath (Are Friends Electric?) and Therese Lloyd (The Facts) , and MA 2017 graduate Tayi Tibble (Poūkahangatus) are shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry; alongside fellow Victoria University Press author Erik Kennedy.
And MA 2016 graduate Chessie Henry is shortlisted for The Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction, for We Can Make A Life.
Titles by Victoria University Press authors - both new and established - make up fully half the shortlist, including the entire poetry category. Read the full shortlist.
Congratulation to our graduates, and all the shortlisted authors. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Auckland on Tuesday 14 May.