5 December 2025
The New Zealand Book Awards Trust is today announcing that it will allow two books to be considered by the judges of the fiction category of the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards that had previously been disallowed because their covers were originated using AI, in contravention of the awards’ entry criteria.
The Trust stands by its decision to introduce this rule to the 2026 awards and is grateful for the support of its stance on AI from the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ), Booksellers Aotearoa NZ and the New Zealand Society of Authors.
The rule was created in response to the critical issues AI raises for the publishing sector. As PANZ president Eboni Waitere noted in the PANZ letter of support for the Trust: “We are dedicated to strongly protecting the intellectual property of our writers and artists. We acknowledge that this is a rapidly changing space and will continue to evolve but in lieu of any government legislation around the implementation of AI to date, we whole-heartedly support the steps the New Zealand Book Awards Trust has taken to protect the creativity and intellectual rights of key members of the publishing ecosystem.”
The two books in question, by Stephanie Johnson and Elizabeth Smither, have a complex entry history which centres on their publisher, who has reported to the Trust that he had not fully engaged with the new rules and had also not fully understood at the time of entry that the two book covers were created with AI.
“It is essential that entries to New Zealand’s national book awards, and especially to the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, which has a $65,000 prize, be made with all due care,” Trust chair Nicola Legat says. “However, in this instance the collateral damage done has been to two very fine authors, and so it is with this in mind that the Trust has decided that it should allow their entries.”
Despite not raising this issue at the time the new rule was announced, some publishers are now advising that they felt they had been given insufficient notice of the inclusion of a rule regarding AI use. The Trust has taken this on board while retaining the restrictions on AI-authored text for the 2026 awards.
To extend natural justice, three other publishers who had read the rules and who advised the Trust administrator that their book covers were originated using AI will be offered the opportunity to resubmit.
Nicola Legat says the judges can now focus on their reading and deliberations, ahead of the announcement of their longlist decisions on 29 January 2026.
“There was a very strong field of over 170 entries to the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and we are all looking forward with keen anticipation to celebrating the up to 44 books that make it onto the 2026 longlist.”
