Love of creative writing has earned 19-year-old Wanganui-based writer, Chelsea Dempsey (right), the Short Short Story Award at BNZ’s 53rd annual Literary Awards held in Wellington on Tuesday evening.
The Bookman was the judge for this category and in announcing the winner I said "My Old Man is “a beautifully crafted and moving story that immediately captures the reader. To be able to be heartrending in so few words is an outstanding achievement.”
I added "Throughout my publishing life I have always believed that the shorter a piece of fiction is the more difficult it is to write. That is to say I see writing short stories being more difficult to effectively achieve than writing a novel. And with a short story the shorter it is the more difficult it is to write. You still must tell a story and there still needs to be a beginning, a middle and an end. When you have only 150 words then you have a difficult task indeed.
But these are the digital days, the days of Tweeting and Facebooking and words frequently have to be kept to a minimum. People are getting used to, and skilled at, writing briefly and thus the creation of this category within the BNZ Literary Awards was wonderfully timed and I thank and congratulate the BNZ for this.
In the first year there were 323 short short stories submitted, this year there were 944, a huge increase. This number was then reduced to a long shortlist of 64, then I took that to a short longlist of 24 then finally from that list I made a true shortlist of six. From this list I chose a winner, a runner up and four highly commended stories. The standard overall was very good, an improvement on last year, but those in the final six were all outstanding and I had great difficulty deciding on the winner, they were that close. In the end though there can only be one winner and that winner is Chelsea Dempsey
The category, one of the most exciting to emerge in the awards in recent years, was for
entries through the online channel of Facebook and was introduced just last year.
Andy Symons, Director Retail at BNZ said, “we’ve been watching the dramatic change in
technology, from pen and paper to computer and Facebook and how that’s altered the
way the younger generation experience the written form.
“As the method of writing has changed, the awards have adjusted to reflect those
developments while still respecting and preserving the traditional form. We’re keenly
aware of the value literature adds to the growth and development of the young mind.”
Chelsea Dempsey says she fell in love with creative and descriptive writing at a very early
age and was so smitten that at age 13 she attended a writer’s camp with guest author
Ken Catran. She credits him with helping her understand how to format short stories.
The BNZ Literary Awards, established in 1959, aim to foster and grow literature in New
Zealand and are the country’s longest-running short story awards.
They offer four 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.
BNZ Short Short Story Writer, for a short story of a maximum of 150 words
submitted via Facebook - $500 prize money
Winners of the other categories were:
Ellie Catton judged Hamilton student Emily Hunter’s story, Of Dust, the clear winner in the young writer category not least because it dared to “...wrestle with a philosophical uncertainty and left that uncertainty unresolved.”The story was selected from an impressive and competitive list of 261 entries. The section attracted a record number of entries, up 81% on the last year.
Ellie Catton said of the story, “I was reminded of the ending of the Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party, she says. “The ending of Of Dust is similarly open-ended, ineffable,and similarly wry.”
She went on to say, “Of Dust is a fantastic story. I have a feeling that we will be reading
Emily Hunter in years to come.”
Judge Laurence Fearnley announced young Auckland mother Nicole Tan as the winner of the Novice Writer category .Nicole Tan from Bucklands Beach leads a hectic life juggling the responsibilities of motherhood with her job as a research assistant at Auckland University.
After completing an undergraduate writing course as part of her degree, Nicole plucked up the courage to enter the awards. Having never entered any competitions before, she didn’t really know what to expect. “I had a story bouncing around in my head for over a year so I thought I’d better do something with it. But, winning my category is really surreal. It’s not something I expected,” she says. And she took home $1500 for her efforts.
Nicole’s winning story titled Up and Down and Over tells the experience of a solo mother in the midst of a long-haul flight.
And for the big one:
Her short story Misjudged follows a child’s struggle to meet an expectation she is
not sufficiently grown up for. This is based on Julie’s own childhood experiences,
working after school in her father’s shop. Julie’s father was a tailor and kilt maker
in Dunedin and taught her about being a craftsperson, a family legacy that has
clearly paid off.
Julie, a health planner for the Auckland District Health Board, has been writing
for a number of years but it was her Masters in Creative Writing from Auckland
University, and her mentor Witi Ihimaera, that really gave her the springboard to
launch into serious writing. “I always loved writing, especially bringing the
imaginary world to life,” says Julie.
In her job with the ADHB, Julie is immersed in writing though she describes this
as deeply bureaucratic. “I write reports, strategy and planning documents by day
and by night I flip into creative overdrive,” she explains.
The Awards event was held at the City Gallery Wellington. Impressive MC for the glittering evening was Miranda Harcourt and among the many book world notables present I noticed Fergus Barrowman and Elizabeth Knox, Barbara and Chris Else, Anne O'Brien, Sam Elworthy, Anna Hodge, Elizabeth Caffin, Noel Murphy, Guy Somerset, Roger Steele, Marilyn Duckworth,Kevin Chapman Catriona Ferguson, Mary Varnham, Lincoln Gould, Kathryn Carmody, Stephen Wainwright, Chris Szkeley, and Peter Ireland .
The Hon.Chris Finlayson, Minister for Arts, Culture & Heritage was present to start with but had to return to the House of Representatives after he had spoken. He did manage to sneak in to his speech a couple of snide remarks about the APO (suggested they are at war with the NZSO!) and New Zealand Herald which I felt were both totally unnecessary and added nothing to the occasion.
Her Worship the Mayor of Wellington, Celia Wade was also present as was a strong showing of staff from the sponsor, the BNZ, and representatives from the KM Birthplace Society, and the KM advisory board
The tables were decorated with wonderful paper sculptures with literary themes by talented Wellington artist and graphic designer Tabitha Nathan..
All in all a great night and I offer my thanks and congratulations to the organisers.It was a privilege to have been involved.
One complaint - out of town guests like me were put up at Novotel on The Terrace. Perfectly comfortable, pleasant hotel in good location BUT they charged me $30 for the use of WiFi overnight! WiFi should be free, I will not stay there again. Let us all boycott Novotel Hotels. and other hotels, who do not provide free WiFi.
Footnote:
BNZ 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.
Photographs below supplied by BNZ.
No comments:
Post a Comment