• NZ Book Industry Awards

    Community bookshop wins owners lifetime achievement award Forty years ago, then 25-year-old Rob Clarke had a fateful phone call from his mother, asking him if he’d like to run a bookshop in Paraparaumu. Tonight, he and his wife Kaye have been jointly awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 Book Trade Industry Awards, announced […]

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  • Congratulations to our new Poet Laureate

    David Eggleton, New Zealand Poet Laureate 2019–2021 David Eggleton lives in Otepoti/Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand. He is a poet, writer and critic whose writing has appeared in a wide variety of New Zealand publications. As a poet he has presented his poems in many venues to all kinds of audiences. He began reciting his poetry […]

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  • National Schools Poetry Award celebrates New Zealand’s poets of the future

    A year 13 student at Auckland’s Westlake Girls High School has won first place in the 2019 International Institute of Modern Letters’ (IIML) National Schools Poetry Award, with her poem ‘Mammalian’. Xiaole Zhan receives a prize of $500 and the opportunity to attend a poetry masterclass with poet Chris Tse and Starling editor Francis Cooke […]

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  • Celebrating the unifying power of poetry

    This year, Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day takes place on Friday 23 August; the same day that New Zealand’s new Poet Laureate is announced. Again, our annual celebration of poetry has broken all records, with more than 150 events and competitions scheduled to take place nationwide.  Expect #NZPoetryDay to trend on Twitter and people to […]

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  • New Zealand’s national writer-residency organisation announces its 2020 Writers in Residence Programme

    The Michael King Writers Centre is pleased to announce that next year’s programme of residencies at the historic Signalman’s House on Takarunga Mt Victoria in Devonport, Auckland, is now open for applications. Writers awarded a residency can look forward to peaceful accommodation, the use of a writing studio, a generous stipend and the opportunity to […]

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  • Ashton Wylie 2019 Book and Unpublished Manuscript Awards

    MEDIA RELEASE Provocative Book Encouraging Behaviour Change to Save Our Planet Wins Major Award Auckland professor of psychology Niki Harré has won this year’s $10,000 Ashton Wylie Mind Body Spirit Book Award for The Infinite Game, a work that teaches us how to live and work co-operatively together, for the good of ourselves and the planet. Niki Harré […]

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  • Shortlist announced for inaugural Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize

    14 August 2019 Hachette NZ and the Margarey Mahy estate have announced the shortlist for the inaugural Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize for unpublished illustrators. The shortlisted illustrators are: Emily Walker Hilary Jean Tapper Jane McIntosh Lara Cash Sarah Greig. Unpublished New Zealand artists were invited to illustrate Mahy’s story ‘A Boy with Two Shadows’, as […]

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  • ‘No Friend but the Mountains’ wins National Biography Award

    Behrouz Boochani also won the Victorian Premier’s Award. He sent his manuscript from where he is interred on Manus Island, by WattsApp. He accepted the National Biography Prize, also by Wattsapp… The State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) has announced No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani (Picador) as the winner of this year’s $25,000 […]

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  • Creative New Zealand Pacific Arts Strategy 2018–2023 update: Celebrating the first year of delivery

    Ia manuia le fai o le faiva! Creative New Zealand’s Pacific Arts Strategy 2018–2023 was launched in September 2018 with the main purpose of directing and prioritising increased investment to support the development of Pacific Arts over five years. Developed in consultation with the Pacific Arts community and wider arts sector, the strategy’s  vision is of a […]

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  • Storylines Dame Kātarina Te Heikōkō Mataira Award

     The Storylines Dame Kātarina Te Heikōkō Mataira Award is open to all New Zealand writers and is made annually, when merited, to the New Zealand author of an unpublished work written originally in te reo Maori.The award carries a monetary prize of $1500. The next award will be made in April 2020, with the deadline […]

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  • NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS TRUST NEWS – IT’S ‘THE BOMB’!

    A sparkling story of courage and transformation has been judged the best book for young readers at this year’s New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. The Bomb by Sacha Cotter, illustrated by Josh Morgan and published by Huia, was awarded the highest prize in children’s publishing – The Margaret Mahy Book of […]

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  • Creative New Zealand increases arts sector investment by $27 million and confirms 80 arts organisations for its investment programmes

    Eighty New Zealand arts organisations are confirmed in Creative New Zealand’s Investment programmes over the next two to six years, following Arts Council approval in July this year. This comprises 23 organisations in the Toi T?tara Haemata (T?tara) programme and 57 organisations in the Toi Uru Kahikatea (Kahikatea) programme. Due to the number of high-quality […]

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