Short story winner Gemma Bowker-Wright in Wellington.  Photo / Mark MitchellShort story winner Gemma Bowker-Wright in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Gemma Bowker-Wright is fascinated by the way time changes things.
It plays on her mind whether she's reporting to John Key on climate change or developing an award-winning short story in what could become her new career.
The 27-year-old science analyst, who works in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, was yesterday awarded this year's $10,000 BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award for short story writing.
Her winning entry Katherine - praised by writer and head judge Owen Marshall as "confident and original, with balance, compassion and restraint" - describes an elderly woman's mental decline through the eyes of her bewildered husband, David.
As the story moves back and forward through his memory, it throws up a geological image of mountains rising "sharp and white, the result of millions of years of tectonic uplift".
Bowker-Wright agrees that is one of the preoccupations with her writing.
A previous award-winning story combined the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland with evolutionary theory.
Full story at New Zealand Herald.