The Long and the Short of It

Unity Books and Sport are delighted to announce that the winners of The Long and the Short of It competition for stories over 10,000 words and under 1000 words are Lawrence Patchett for ‘The Road to Tokomairiro’, and Kirsten McDougall for ‘Clean Hands Save Lives’.

The judges – Elizabeth Knox, Bill Manhire and Emily Perkins – comment that both winning stories ‘deal with difficult things and find their way to various kinds of human decency’.

Of Lawrence Patchett’s long story: ‘This remarkable—apparently artless, apparently old-fashioned—story strikes a quiet new note in New Zealand fiction. “The Road to Tokomairiro” shows us how ordinary human fortitude and decency can be, even in the most troubled circumstances. The story has moral seriousness, but feels “lighter” than its subject matter, perhaps because it is so beautifully and sympathetically written.’

Of Kirsten McDougall’s short story: ‘“Clean Hands Save Lives” is about how families work; it’s about generational power struggle; it’s about how to be a functioning mother. There’s lovely pacing, and yet we get a real story, not just a quick sketch of family dynamics—and there’s also a nice sense of comic circularity (the snake with its tail in its mouth) courtesy of some supermarket biscuits.’

The winners will be presented with their prizes – $1000 book tokens from Unity Books – at the Auckland Writers Festival, Sunday 15 May, 5-6.15pm, when they will also read from their work and be interviewed on stage by Emily Perkins. All welcome.

Both authors have yet to publish their first books. Kirsten McDougall has had fiction and poetry published in Sport, Turbine and Big Weather: Poems of Wellington (2nd edition). Lawrence Patchett’s work has appeared in Sport, Booknotes and Lumière Reader. He is literary co-editor of Hue and Cry, and currently working towards a PhD in creative writing at Victoria University.

The stories are published, along with four highly commended stories – ‘Anchorage’ by Sylvie Thomson and ‘When We Were Bread’ by Anna Jackson in the long division, and ‘The Orienteer’ by Rachel O’Neill and ‘The Waikato Farmers’ by Craig Cliff in the short division – in The Long and the Short of It, which is available from Unity Books, RRP $20.

Sport 39

The latest issue of New Zealand’s leading magazine of new writing features:

The winners of The Long and the Short of It.

Allen Curnow at 100 – ‘Allen Curnow: Poems of a Christchurch Childhood’, an extract from Terry Sturm’s forthcoming literary biography of Allen Curnow, and poems by Vincent O’Sullivan, James Brown and Bill Manhire.

And poems, stories and essays from: Pip Adam, Sarah Jane Barnett, Peter Bland, William Brandt, Medb Charleton, Geoff Cochrane, Rose Collins, Lynn Davidson, Anastasia Doniants, Lynley Edmeades, Johanna Emeney, Joan Fleming, Bernadette Hall, Amy Head, Helen Heath, Anna Jackson, Lynn Jenner, Andrew Johnston, Brent Kininmont, Aleksandra Lane, Chloe Lane, Helen Lehndorf, Li Bai (translated by Baziju), Bill Manhire, Emma Martin, Sarah McCallum, Kate McKinstry, Frankie McMillan, Hannah Newport-Watson, John Newton, Bob Orr, Cate Palmer, Susannah Poole, Jenny Powell, Chris Price, Melissa Day Reid, Helen Rickerby, Marty Smith, Elizabeth Smither, Rhydian W. Thomas, Sylvie Thomson, Tim Upperton, Catherine Vidler, Louise Wallace, Ian Wedde, Tom Weston, Ashleigh Young.

Sport is edited and published by Fergus Barrowman, who founded the magazine in 1988 with Elizabeth Knox, Nigel Cox and Damien Wilkins, with assistance from Bill Manhire, Alan Preston and Andrew Mason. Sport was published twice a year until November 2003, and is now published annually, in May.

RRP $30

Single-issue subscription $25. Some 328 pages of terrific writing, steal at this price.

And for the first time available as an ebook  for $15 from http://mebooks.co.nz