NZ Book Month: Six Pack Winners Announced

Media Release: For immediate release
Date: 03 September 2007

NZ Book Month: Six Pack Winners Announced

The six winning writers in The Six Pack Two, an annual anthology of six pieces of new writing published to celebrate NZ Book Month, were announced yesterday at the launch of NZ Book Month 2007 at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

A NZ Book Month competition led to the selection of the six pieces in the anthology. The winning authors are a mix of established and emerging writers: Charlotte Grimshaw; one of New Zealand’s most successful and promising writers, currently short listed for the world’s richest short fiction prize the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, Dave Armstrong; scriptwriter and currently writer in residence at Victoria University, Elizabeth Smither; poet, novelist and former Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate, Tracey Slaughter; emerging novelist and poet, new authors Faith Oxenbridge and Jennifer Lane (profiles below). The Associate Minister of Cultural Affairs and Heritage Mahara Okeroa presented each author with their prize money of $5,000 at the launch.

The author’s identities were kept secret as their entries were judged by a public online poll and a panel of judges including author and literary legend Dame Fiona Kidman, presenter of TV2's 20/20 programme Miriama Kamo, journalist and media personality Finlay Macdonald, retiring Director of Auckland University Press Elizabeth Caffin, and Joan Mackenzie, Book Manager for Whitcoulls.

Miriama Kamo says, “The Six Pack is a rare forum in which writers at varying stages of their careers can share a space, and at $6 per book can access a wide audience. NZ Book Month is a wonderful time where we get to honour writers whose work reflects, and helps to shape, our national identity”

30,000 copies of The Six Pack Two will be published. Three complimentary copies have been donated to every secondary school and public library in the country, and it will be for sale at all good bookstores for only $6 during the month.

The Project Director of NZ Book Month, Phil Twyford says, “NZ Book Month’s Six Pack is now an annual feature on the New Zealand writing calendar. It offers a contemporary look at the state of New Zealand writing. Want to know what’s on New Zealand’s mind? - read The Six Pack Two. At only $6 it’s our shout.”

“There will be over 150 book-related events happening all over the country this Book Month so there’s plenty of opportunity for everyone to get involved and be a part of celebrating New Zealand’s books and writers.”

NZ Book Month, from 3-30 September 2007, is a month long celebration of NZ books and NZ writers which aims to get more New Zealanders reading New Zealand books and to inspire book lovers all over the country. Visit www.nzbookmonth.co.nz to explore how NZ Book Month has something for everyone.

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AUTHOR PROFILES

Faith Oxenbridge | From: Christchurch | Story: In The Back of a VW
Faith Oxenbridge has spent most of her life in Christchurch, with short stints in Auckland, Sydney, London and Israel. She grew up in a semi-rural area and spent most of her adolescence trying to get lifts into town, where the action was. She now lives in town and dreams of living in a semi-rural area. She has been a teacher, bookseller, café owner and sheep dagger, and still is a mother. She currently works for the Christchurch Arts Festival, writes theatre reviews for the Listener and is completing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Canterbury. ‘In the Back of a VW’ is from her collection of stories for her MFA, titled, The Not Quite Right Club.

Elizabeth Smither | From: New Plymouth | Story: Kathy and Tim
Elizabeth Smither was the first woman Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate (2001 – 2003) but she has also written four collections of short stories and four novels, most recently Different Kinds of Pleasure (Penguin, 2005). A new collection of poems, The Year of Adverbs, was published by Auckland University Press in August.

Charlotte Grimshaw | From: Auckland | Story: The Yard Broom
Charlotte Grimshaw is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, Provocation and Guilt, published in Britain and New Zealand, and Foreign City, and a short story collection, Opportunity In 2000 she was awarded the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship. She was a double finalist, and prizewinner, in the 2005 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition, and in 2006 she won the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Premier Writer’s Award for short fiction. Her short stories have appeared in, among others, The Best New Zealand Fiction Volumes 2 and 3, the New Zealand Listener; the Sunday Star-Times, Reed’s Myth of the 21st Century and in Stand magazine in the UK. She lives in Auckland.

Dave Armstrong | From: Wellington | Story: Foodbanquet (from the novel ‘The Speechwriter’)
Wellington writer Dave Armstrong has written extensively for screen and stage – as well as a few speeches. He won Best New New Zealand Play in two consecutive years at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards for The Tutor and Niu Sila (co-written with Oscar Knightley). His musical play King and Country has been performed throughout the country and on radio. Armstrong’s television credits include Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby, Bro’town, The Semisis, Skitz and Shortland Street. He won an AFTA television award for Best Comedy Script for Spin Doctors. He has written one book, True Colours, about the 1996 general election, and is currently Writer in Residence at Victoria University.

Jennifer Lane | From: Wellington | Story: Scout’s Honour
Jennifer Lane was born in 1972 on the south coast of New South Wales. In 1995 she crossed the world to see what life was like in a foreign hemisphere, only to meet a Kiwi and move with him to Wellington. Whether it was because she knew no one and had no job, or because she finally felt inspired, she penned her first short story within a month of settling in New Zealand She has continued writing over the years, sneaking in an hour here, five minutes there, and has enjoyed some success with short stories. Now taking time out of the real world to care for her daughter, she’s attempting to write ‘the novel’. ‘Scout’s Honour’ is an excerpt from this novel, entitled (this week, anyway) Little White Lies.

Tracey Slaughter | From: Coromandel | Story: Note Left on a Window
Tracey Slaughter’s first collection of poems and short stories, Her Body Rises, was published by Random House in 2005. She has won the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Novice Writer’s Award, the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Premier Writer’s Award, the Aoraki Festival Poetry Competition and been highly commended in the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition. Her work has appeared in literary journals in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and France and in local anthologies. Slaughter studied at the University of Auckland and went on to teach there and at Massey University. She now writes fulltime and lives in Thames with her partner and two young children.

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