New Zealand Herald, Andrew Laxon, Saturday Aug 13, 2011.
Short story winner Gemma Bowker-Wright in Wellington. Photo / Mark MitchellIt 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.
how disappointing the Herald never mentioned the winning Secondary Student, Chiao Lin who has been in my creative writing group and who I (along with her fab English teacher) guided her with her winning story.
ReplyDeleteChiao, like her award winning older sister (who is a poet), Yin, has an exceptional talent as a writer.
Still, this is a first for me to have one of my students win the KM and I am delighted for her. Well deserved.
Yet again, the YA section of the literary world gets ignored by the mass media.
Yes, Tania. I'm finding it's so as I shuffle through the internet looking for more than a passing mention of Chiao Lin.
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