Here’s another event based around the Montana Book Awards this month. Billed as the Bigger Than Ben Hur Book Awards, it will be an inside look at what contributes to the judging process of awards, what attracts judges and presumably repels them, and what the awards mean to the authors, the publishers, the public and the booksellers.

This very literary discussion will feature some big names in the industry: Gordon McLauchlan, New Zealand Herald feature writer and author; Tessa Duder, multi award winning NZ author; Graham Beattie, literary judge and publishing executive; and Jill Upchurch, book retail expert and literary judge. The event will be chaired by no less than Kevin Ireland, NZ author, artist, and award winner.

All of these fine literary minds have one way or another contributed to the judging, selection and reviewing process of the Montana Book Awards, so that’ll be first up. They will also be checking out the plethora of other literary prizes on offer today, including the Orange Prize, The Man Booker, The Whitbread, The Pulitzer and the er, Bram Stoker. Hm, a new one on us …

This is a fundraiser for North Shore Libraries Foundation, so get yourself and your book club along for a good night out. You can ask questions, heckle, or just relax and wonder if you’ll get lucky with a selection of fiction titles donated by Whitcoulls. It’s on Wednesday, 14th July at 7.30pm, at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna, Auckland. Tickets $15.00 from Ticketek.