We are delighted to announce the winner of the NZSA Lilian Ida Smith Award 2017 – Palmerston North writer Paula Harris.
With 87 entries for this award, the selection panel of Lee Murray and Paddy Richardson had a tough time deciding on a winner. Palmerston North poet Paula Harris, will use the award to work on her poetry collection A thousand deliciously ill-advised ways to shorten your life.
Paula Harris says: When I opened the email from New Zealand Society of Authors, I was expecting the usual “blah blah, thanks but no thanks, please try again in the future.” But this one said congratulations. Congratulations! I may have screamed just a little. I may have run up and down the house a couple of times. I may have gone back to re-read the email, and then screamed again, and then run up and down the house again. I think I scared the sun away. Yes, I can be that powerful.
After twenty-something years of being an emerging poet, I think maybe I got stuck in my chrysalis, part way out. Pesky wings getting in the way, I suspect. And the need to keep a roof over my head. And trying to deal with health issues, including depression. But mainly the wings getting stuck.
I’m hoping that receiving the Lilian Ida Smith Award will give me a hand in cracking open the chrysalis once and for all. Then I can get on with world domination. Or getting a poetry collection published, as a starting point. It means so much that the selection panel chose me, especially as my writing tends to not be the usual. Given that this collection-in-progress is titled A thousand deliciously ill-advised ways to shorten your life, now I just need to find some more deliciously ill-advised things to write about.
Or, to put it more simply, in the words of the first person I told: “Holy shit balls. That’s awesomeness!”
Selection panel convener Lee Murray said that ‘the range and quality of work submitted was impressive. Entries represented a wide range of genres including, non-fiction (hyperfiction, memoir, essay, and instructional manuals), fiction (literary, young adult, middle grade, picture book, short story collections), poetry, and drama (plays, screenplay). With very few exceptions, the projects were clear and viable’.
The selection panel have also awarded Honourable Mentions to four writing projects. These have been awarded to:
- Colleen Lenihan, for her evocative short story collection, Cherry Blossom Girl and Other Stories, tales from the margins of Japan and New Zealand
- Clare Moleta, for her speculative novel, Children Walking, a climate change dystopia focusing on refugees
- Sarah Myles (McGoff), for her hyperfiction, Towards the Mountain, a family perspective on the aftermath of the Mount Erebus disaster
- Rochelle Savage, for her play, Adam and Eve have a family, a contemporary exploration of non-traditional gender roles in family
Candidates gaining an honourable mention each receive a complimentary one-year NZSA membership.
Past recipients of the Lilian Ida Smith award include Sue Orr, Rachael King, Bill Manhire, Lauris Edmond, Owen Marshall, Caroline Barron and Graeme Lay.
About the Award
The Lilian Ida Smith Award was initiated when Lilian Ida Smith, a music teacher of Wanganui who had a keen interest in the arts, left part of her legacy to the NZ Society of Authors to ‘assist people aged 35yrs and over to embark upon or further a literary career’.
The biennial Lilian Ida Smith Award provides the successful applicant with an award of $3,000 to assist them towards completion of a specific project.
The first award was made in 1986. The amount of the award is obtained by accumulating interest on the capital of the bequest. The last award was made in 2015. The award is only open to financial members of the NZ Society of Authors who are aged 35 years or over.
