Creative writing in class brings a win to Hawke’s Bay student in BNZ Literary Awards

An initiative put in place by the Karamu High School, Hastings English department has helped propel a seventeen year old Hawke’s Bay student into the national spotlight at the BNZ Literary Awards.

Haumoana local, Brittany Rorrison, has won the $1500 Young Writer prize at last night’s BNZ Literary Awards held in Wellington. She also collected $2000 for her school as part of her prize.

Her short story, Thirteen Toadstools, was picked as winner by judge and author Emily Perkins (right) who said her story telling was mature and unassuming. “It is an impressive piece of fiction from this young writer” she says.

Martin O’Grady, Principal of Karamu High School, Hastings, says the decision by the school’s Head of English, Jo Morris, to invite local author Anna Mackenzie to become a “writer in residence” at the school has proven an overwhelming success.
“Anna’s presence has provided inspiration to our students and produced outstanding results for them, as Brittany’s outstanding result at the BNZ Literary Awards clearly demonstrates” says Mr O’Grady.
“We will certainly be investing the school’s prize money in more workshops next year to build on our successes in 2010.”
“Jo has coordinated a number of workshops where Anna has been able to pass on invaluable knowledge and experience to the students to help them become better writers and, for some of them, ignite a real passion for writing.”

Andy Symons, Director, Retail at BNZ says seeing successful young writers such as Brittany come through has made the BNZ’s long standing sponsorship of the literary awards all the more worthy.
Over time the Awards have evolved to become a reflection of New Zealand. Many past winners of the premier award have gone on to become some of New Zealand’s most respected writers and we are proud to be able to recognise and support them,” he says.

In addition to the Young Writer prize, two further awards were handed out last night.
Wellington writer, Wes Lee, took out the top $10,000 prize at the BNZ Literary Awards.

Lee’s short story ‘Furniture’ was judged winner of the prestigious BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award, placing her alongside previous winners and such New Zealand literary icons as CK Stead, Frank Sargeson, Keri Hulme and, more recently, Charlotte Grimshaw.

BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award judge and author, Lloyd Jones, (left), had high praise for Lee’s writing calling it, “Sophisticated in its construction, persuasive in its telling, this story is in a class of its own.”

The Novice category award went to Chloe Searle, an Oamaru curator whose story ‘Babysitting’ saw judge Emma Neale describe her as a “writer of enormous promise”.

Established in 1959, the BNZ Literary Awards aim to foster literature in New Zealand and are the country’s longest-running short story awards.
BNZ has been part of the New Zealand landscape for 150 years and holds close ties to Katherine Mansfield. Her father, Sir Harold Beauchamp, was a director of BNZ, a position he held for 38 years. He was also the chairman of the board for 17 years.

The BNZ Literary Awards offer three levels of entry:

• BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award, for published writers - $10,000 prize money

• BNZ Novice Writer, for unpublished writers - $1500 prize money

• BNZ Young Writer, for writers who are at secondary school - $1500 for the student and $2000 for the winner’s school