NIGEL COX UNITY BOOKS AWARD

The inaugural NIGEL COX UNITY BOOKS AWARD was awarded to Geoff Cochrane by Susanna Andrew and Jo McColl at the 21st Birthday party for Unity Books Auckland this past Saturday (27th Feb).

This award took form from the late Nigel Cox’s utter adoration of both writing and reading and the often dismal reality that authors don’t have the money to spend on buying the books that furnish their minds and lives.
So every year Unity Books will give $1000, in the name of Nigel Cox, (pic right), to the author that Jo and Susanna (at times attempting to channel Nigel himself) agree displays an ‘exceptional way with words’.

When presenting the award Susanna spoke of Nigel’s love of Cochrane’s poetry and read a passage from Responsibility (Nigel’s novel) regarding Cochrane and clouds: “Okay when this guy writes about clouds he writes Tin Nimbus. That’s the name of one of his books and I like to think about this name and have it around the place, like interesting furniture in the living room of my head, an objet d’art.”

“I'm thrilled for myself, of course, but it's great to see Nigel's name adorned and perpetuated by this new award. I'd like to thank Unity Books and the folk at VUP, and also to remember for a moment my late publicist, the tireless Heather McKenzie.”
Geoff Cochrane.