The 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards will be held in Auckland on May 11 2022 as an in-person event, the New Zealand Book Awards Trust has confirmed.
“Having fully researched high-quality virtual options, assessed again the risk and reward of virtual versus in-person, and looked at the steadily dropping case numbers both nationally and in Auckland, we have concluded that we can mount a safe event at the Red level,” says
Trust chair Nicola Legat.
“In a year when literary events have been cancelled or postponed as the result of Covid, we are delighted that publishers and authors are going to be able to gather for this significant awards evening.”
The event will be held at the Q Theatre on Queen Street. In order to comply with the regulations under Red, tickets will be limited to finalist authors, publishers, sponsors, and their immediate circles. Should Auckland move to Orange before May 11 these constraints will be adjusted. The proceedings will be filmed and live-streamed for those not in attendance.
The 11 May ceremony will announce four category winners from a shortlist of 16 books: the $60,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, the Booksellers Aotearoa NZ Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction and the General Non-Fiction Award, each with prize money of $10,000. Four debut writers in each of the subject categories will also each receive a Crystal Arts Trust Best First Book Award, worth $2,500.
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are also supported by naming sponsor Ockham Residential and Creative New Zealand, and staged in collaboration with the Auckland Writers Festival.
Judges
This year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges are: Otago Daily Times journalist and books editor Rob Kidd; Booksellers Aotearoa’s programme coordinator and avid reader Gemma Browne; and award-winning writer and freelance oral historian/researcher Kelly Ana Morey (Ngāti Kurī, Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri) (Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction); author, poet, reviewer and teacher Saradha Koirala; internationally published and award-winning poet, playwright, short story writer and novelist Apirana Taylor (Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau ā Apanui, , Ngāti Ruanui and Te Āti Awa); and writer, editor and bookseller Jane Arthur (Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry); museum curator Chanel Clarke (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Porou, Waikato Tainui); photographer, author and urbanist Patrick Reynolds; and former publisher and co-founder of Godwit Press Jane Connor (Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction); and poet and non-fiction author, book reviewer and blogger Nicholas Reid, award-winning journalist and photographer Aaron Smale (Ngāti Porou); and poet, historian, former diplomat and Fulbright alumna Leilani Tamu (General Non-Fiction Award).
International Fiction judge John Freeman is founder of the literary annual Freeman’s, executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf, and the author and editor of ten books including The Park, The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, Dictionary of the Undoing, and, with Tracy K. Smith, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love.
Background
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are the country’s premier literary honours for books written by New Zealanders. First established in 1968 as the Wattie Book Awards (later the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards), they have also been known as the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the New Zealand Post Book Awards. Awards are given for Fiction (the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction), Poetry (the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry) Illustrated Non-Fiction (the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction) and General Non-Fiction. There are also four awards for first-time authors (The Crystal Arts Trust Best First Book awards) and, at the judges’ discretion, Te Mūrau o te Tuhi, a Māori Language Award. The awards are governed by the New Zealand Book Awards Trust (a registered charity). Current members of the Trust are Nicola Legat, Karen Ferns, Paula Morris, Jenna Todd, Anne Morgan, Melanee Winder, Melinda Szymanik and Richard Pamatatau. The Trust also governs the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day.
Ockham Residential is Auckland’s most thoughtful developer. Through creating elegant and enduring buildings that are well-loved by those who make them home, Ockham hopes to enhance Auckland – and to contribute to its many communities. Founded in 2009 by Mark Todd and Benjamin Preston, Ockham supports a number of organisations in arts, science and education. These include the Ockham Collective, their creative and educational charity, the acclaimed BWB Texts series, the People’s Choice Award in New Zealand Geographic’s Photographer of the Year Award, and Ponsonby’s Objectspace gallery. But its principal sponsorship of the New Zealand Book Awards, a relationship now in its eighth year, is perhaps Ockham’s most visible contribution. Says Mark Todd: “Our communities would be drab, grey and much poorer places without art, without words, without science – without critical thought. That’s why our partnership with the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards means the world to us.”
Creative New Zealand has been a sustaining partner of New Zealand’s book awards for decades. The national arts development agency of the New Zealand government encourages, promotes and supports the arts in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders through funding, capability building, an international programme, and advocacy. Creative New Zealand provides a wide range of support to New Zealand literature, including funding for writers and publishers, residencies, literary festivals and awards, and supports organisations which work to increase the readership and sales of New Zealand literature at home and internationally.
The Acorn Foundation is a community foundation based in the Western Bay of Plenty, which encourages people to leave a gift in their wills and/or their lifetimes to support their local community forever. Donations are pooled and invested, and the investment income is used to make donations to local charities, in accordance with the donors’ wishes. The capital remains intact. Since it was established in 2003, Acorn has distributed over $10 million. Donors may choose which organisations are to benefit each year, or they may decide to leave it to the trustees’ discretion. Community foundations are the fastest growing form of philanthropy worldwide, and there are now 17 throughout New Zealand, with more in the early stages. The Prize for Fiction has been provided through the generosity of one of the Foundation’s donors, Jann Medlicott, and will be awarded to the top fiction work each year, in perpetuity. Its base figure of $50,000 in 2016 is adjusted each year, to reflect wage inflation
Mary and Peter Biggs CNZM are long-time arts advocates and patrons – particularly of literature, theatre and music. They have funded the Biggs Family Prize in Poetry at Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters since 2006, along with the Alex Scobie Research Prize in Classical Studies. They have been consistent supporters of the International Festival of the Arts, the Auckland Writers Festival, Wellington’s Circa Theatre, the New Zealand Arts Foundation, Featherston Booktown, Read NZ Te Pou Muramura, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Featherston Sculpture Trust and the Wairarapa’s Kokomai Arts Festival. Peter was Chair of Creative New Zealand from 1999 to 2006. He led the Cultural Philanthropy Taskforce in 2010 and the New Zealand Professional Orchestra Sector Review in 2012. Peter is Chief Executive of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for arts governance and philanthropy in 2013.
Founded in 1921, Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand is the membership association for bookshops in New Zealand. This national not-for-profit trade organisation works to help independently owned and chain bookstores to grow and succeed. Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand provides education, information, business products, and services; creates relevant programmes; and engages in public policy and industry advocacy. The association is governed by a volunteer board of booksellers.
The Crystal Arts Trust is an independent registered charitable trust dedicated to cultural philanthropy. Formed in 2021 by longstanding patrons of the arts James and Rosetta Allan, its aim is to make a difference to the future of emerging writers, visual artists, and musicians, by providing financial support at a critical time in their career. To provide enduring support, the Crystal Arts Trust plans to cultivate partnerships with an array of arts, cultural, and corporate organisations from across the country. With their backing, the trust will work to ensure that emerging artists receive the support they need to thrive, develop their career, and become commercially successful.
The Auckland Writers Festival | Waituhi o Tāmaki is the largest literary event in New Zealand and the largest presenter of Aotearoa literature in the world. Established in 1999, this annual festival hosts more than 200 writers for six days of discussion, conversation, reading, debate, performance, schools, family and free events ranging across fiction, non-fiction, poetry, music, theatre, culture, art and more. Audience attendance ranges between 65-85,000. This year’s Festival takes place 23-28 August 2022.
