Nominations sought for $65,000 literary prize

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Fri May 11 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Nominations sought for $65,000 literary prize

Friday, 11 May 2007, 3:43 pm
Press Release: Victoria University of Wellington

11 May 2007

Nominations are now being sought for Australasia’s largest single literary award – the $65,000 Prize in Modern Letters.

Nominations must be received by 28 July 2007.

Professor Bill Manhire, Director of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University, says nominations are sought from New Zealand’s talented emerging writers for the biennial award.

In 2006 the prize money for the award increased to $65,000, making it the single largest literary prize in Australasia.

The International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), based at Victoria University, administers the Prize in Modern Letters. The prize is funded by the philanthropist Glenn Schaeffer.

Professor Manhire will convene a panel of three judges who will announce a short list by 13 October 2007. Judges will pay particular attention to literary achievement and potential, and to the overall quality of authorship.

An international judge will then determine the overall winner for the fourth time in the short history of the prestigious award.

The winner will be announced in March 2008 during the New Zealand International Arts Festival.

Conditions of entry, eligibility and nomination forms are available online at
www.vuw.ac.nz/modernletters/activities/prize-in-modern-letters.asp

In 2002, Catherine Chidgey was the inaugural winner of the Prize in Modern Letters. She was subsequently named in The Listener as New Zealand's top novelist under 40, as judged by a panel of reviewers and academics. The 2004 Prize went to poet and doctor Glenn Colquhoun, who was the winner of the Montana Poetry and Readers’ Choice Awards for the previous year. He recently released a new collection of poems, How We Fell. Carl Shuker took the 2006 Prize with just one book, The Method Actors, an ambitious novel set in contemporary Tokyo. He has since published a second novel, The Lazy Boys.

In March 2001, Glenn Schaeffer launched the International Institute of Modern Letters based at Victoria University’s Kelburn campus and, at the same time, initiated and provided funding for the Prize in Modern Letters.

Glenn Schaeffer maintains close links with the University and received an honorary doctor of literature degree in 2003.

ENDS

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