The life and literature of CK Stead will be revealed in a new book, thanks to a $35,000 writer’s award from Copyright Licensing Limited (CLL).

The award goes to academic and writer Judith Dell Panny. She reckons CK Stead is an outstanding writer whose work has been underrated, perhaps because of his reputation for criticism and controversy:

I hope to increase understanding of this complex, versatile and innovative writer; to relate CK Stead’s writing to his life, to talk of the things that have occupied him, what he has fought for.

Also in the money is the social historian Stevan Eldred-Grigg, who gets $35,000 for a book on the history of the New Zealand gold rushes.

Meanwhile, Sarah Laing of Wellington has won the Open Division of the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition with her tale, The Wrong Shoe, set in New York immediately after 9/11. The judge for the Open Division, Owen Marshall, said that her story was excellent and displayed originality, humour and strong characterisation.

In the Secondary School Division, Dazhao Zhang, a student at Pakuranga College in Auckland, collected first prize for his story, First Arrival. Graeme Lay, judge of this division said this story was 'the work of a writer of tremendous ability'. The prize for the Best Unpublished Writer was presented to West Auckland writer, Kerry Challinor for her Open Division story, Carly.