Bill Manhire has won the Poetry category in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2006, with his collection Lifted. And it's a jolly good poke in the eye to his detractors (check out the comments following this article.)

According to Emeritus Professor Lawrence Jones, convenor of the judging panel, Lifted

is a short but packed book, the work of a major poet who continues to develop his art and his vision in ways that are consonant with what he has done before but that at the same time surprise and gratify us.

Right you are, Larry. And despite his stature, Manhire still feels 'lucky':

New Zealand poetry has entered one of its great periods in the last few years, and some astonishing books are being published.

Lifted is published by VUP ('spect, Fergus) and will be judged alongside the winner of the Fiction category for the ultimate prize, the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry. The winner will be announced at a awards ceremony in Auckland at Sky City on Monday 24 July.

You show 'em, Bill.

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Voting is closing soon in the Montana Readers' Choice Award. And why are we telling you? Because a vote puts you in the draw to win $1,000 of Booksellers Tokens, and we'd dearly love a LeafSalon reader to nab that prize.

Voting closes at 5pm next Friday (14 July) and all you have to do is pick your favourite book from the 26 finalists selected by the judges.

So who will it be? Manhire or Marshall? Kidman or Kennedy? Knox or Cox? Just go here and click the 'vote now' button on the right of the page.

Good luck. (And if you saw it here first and win the grand, slip us a fiver, willya?)

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The going rate for most writing prizes seems to be 500 bucks at the moment, if these two are anything to go by.

First up is Bravado’s third International Poetry Competition, to be judged by Tony Beyer. First Prize is $500, second is $250 and third is $100. Then there are ten Highly Commended Prizes of $50 each. Not bad. More info is available from bravado.info@xtra.co.nz.

Next is the Rotorua Writers Group’s National Short Story Competition, judged by Graeme Lay. It goes one-up on the Bravado guys by offering not only $500, but also a night’s motel accommodation if winner lives outside the Rotorua District Council area.

The Rotorua outfit has hooked up with Bravado for the Bravado Novice Award of $100 for the best entry by an unpublished writer, and the story will be considered for publication in Bravado. Bringing up the rear is the Advocate Printing Award of $100 for the best story by a writer living in the greater Rotorua District. Certificates will be presented for Highly Commended entries and the word count is a maximum of 1500. Contact Bernice on (07 362 4663) or bamm@paradise.net.nz for an entry form.

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The shortlist for this year's Spectrum Print Book Design Awards was announced last week. And in LeafSalon's opinion, this is one book award that seems to have lost its way.

Before we go any further, I’ll point out that my misgivings are nothing to do with the books selected. They are all of superlative quality, even if those qualities are not the ones I think the Book Design Awards should be celebrating.

I’ll also point out that I’ve written on the subject of book design before, for the Listener. (But for reasons that will rapidly become apparent, I’m unlikely to be invited to comment by that august publication again in the near future.)

So where do we start?

First: the headline on the press release gives it away: ‘David Lange, Janet Frame and Sir Edmund Hillary compete for Book Design Awards’. Really? None of those admirable people are renowned for their design skills. Who are the real heroes in these awards? This smacks of a desperate grab for populist PR mileage.

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Ta-da: the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Award for 2006 is open. Entries must be unpublished stories and forms are available online: final date for submissions is 30 June.

The short story awards commemorate Katherine Mansfield’s contribution to New Zealand literature and have been synonymous with the Bank of New Zealand (their longest-running sponsorship, since 1958). Since 2003 this has become an annual competition with an increase in prize money for the main award category from $5,000 to $10,000. And entries submitted online on will automatically be entered into the draw to win one of ten NZ$50 Booksellers Tokens.

Past winners have included Maurice Shadbolt, Frank Sargeson and Keri Hulme. The winners’ stories of the 2005 awards are online here.

And while we're on the subject of awards, the Copyright Licensing Awards have popped up again. These give two New Zealand non-fiction writers the opportunity to produce new work, and are calling for applications from established writers by 15 July. Writers with interests in the sciences, Maori and Pacific Studies, the arts and beyond are welcomed. Full application details are available by phoning 09 480 2711. Tell 'em we sent you.

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The Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2006 shortlist has been announced, with a fine line-up that anyone would be proud of.

The judges (Lawrence Jones, Emeritus Professor at the University of Otago and convenor of the judging panel, Linda Burgess, novelist, script writer and teacher of creative writing, and Bob Ross, a publisher with over 40 years experience in the trade) followed a strict set of guidelines, taking into account enduring literary merit and overall authorship; quality of illustration and graphic presentation; production values, general design and the standard of editing and the impact of the book on the community, with emphasis on issues such as topicality, public interest, commercial viability, entertainment, cultural and educational values and lifespan of the book. So why the heck wasn’t Vantastic on the history list? Sigh. Anyway, here we go:

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Well what a dork I am, thinking late last night that the NZ Post press release was embargoed til' today. It wasn't – I could have put the winners up last night! Doh. Anyway, LeafSalon's heartiest congratulations go to Joy Cowley for her book Hunter which has won the NZ Post Book of the Year. (That's her in the middle with the PM and John Allen, CEO of NZ Post). The judges said it was so good, in fact, that it has the 'potential to become a classic of fiction writing for young readers on the international stage'. Crikey.

I was listening to Joy this morning talking on National Radio to That Woman (I'm sorry, but bring back Linda for the love of god) and I was so captivated that I sat in my car at the mall for about ten minutes listening to the end. Apparently she was offered a journalist job at some tender age – outrageous for a girl back then to plunge into this iniquitous role – but her parents firmly said no, and got her a job in a chemist. But she said this was good in retrospect because it gave her a new kind of discipline in ways of thinking and working that she used in her writing later.

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Well, LeafSalon's inaugural competition - to come up with a name for the movie version of William Brandt's The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life has been judged by William himself, and backed up by Craig Gamble of VUP, whose idea it was in the first place. It was hard work, said William, but here's what they came up with:

I took off Sly Mire (Susan) wins the weirdest title category.
My Celluloid Self (Mary McC) wins most efficient.
The Script of the Vision of the Pitch of the Story (curt but not short) wins best-scanning.
Whoops I forgot (Maggie) wins best unintentional title.
The Movie of the Book of the Film of the Story of My Life (Luna Rushdie) wins most literal-minded.

And, drumroll please, the overall winner is: The Film, Already.

Mary Anne, the lucky winner, has been notified of her win and will be receiving Anna Smaill's latest book 'The Violinist in Spring' and Barbara Anderson's 'Collected Stories' shortly.

Thanks to all of you who participated in this slightly silly yet spirited contest - we may yet take up curt but not short's suggestion of hosting NZ's first literary olympics, but we will of course need funding.

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Congratulations to Carl Shuker, who's just won New Zealand’s largest literary prize, the biennial $65,000 Prize in Modern Letters.

Shuker began writing his novel, The Method Actors, while enrolled in the Victoria University Master of Creative Writing programme run by Bill Manhire.

The Method Actors was released last year by American publishing house Shoemaker & Hoard. It draws on the intensity of contemporary Tokyo, where Shuker lived after completing his undergraduate degree. The novel took over two years to complete and was hailed by the judges as a ‘first-rate pyrotechnic display’.

Shuker is understandly chuffed:

This prize goes towards proving a maxim of mine: you never get what you think you most need until the time you no longer need it - the debts that I ran up during the writing of The Method Actors were chilling, and I did believe that I’d come to the end of what I was capable of. This prize gives me, at least for a time, the freedom to carry on writing.

Shuker’s next novel, The Lazy Boys, will be published at the end of this year, again by Shoemaker & Hoard. And you can check out the Listener review of The Method Actors here.

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The 2006 New Zealand Post Book Award finalists have just been announced. And the biggest surprise is not who’s in, but who’s out: Elizabeth Knox’s groundbreaking young adult novel, Dreamhunter, has seemingly not made the cut.

But that’s not to take anything away from the worthy contenders, as selected by Julie Harper of the Jabberwocky Children’s Bookshop in Auckland, writer Graeme Lay and TV producer Carol Hirschfeld:

Young Adult

Deep Fried, by Bernard Beckett and Clare Knighton (Longacre Press)
Kaitangata Twitch, by Margaret Mahy (Allen & Unwin)
Running Hot, by David Hill (Mallinson Rendel)
The Unknown Zone, by Phil Smith (Random House New Zealand)
With Lots of Love from Georgia, by Brigid Lowry (Allen & Unwin)

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Good news for author-illustrator Lynley Dodd: she's won the 2006 Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-loved Book, for the thirty-year-old The Nickle Nackle Tree, the first book Dodd both wrote and illustrated.

The Gaelyn Gordon Award is given annually by the Storylines Children’s Literature Foundation, in memory of the late Hamilton writer Gaelyn Gordon. It's to recognise books that were unheralded at the time of publication, but have remained in print and grown to become favourites with readers.

Dodd is no stranger to awards, and her characters Hairy Maclary, Slinky Malinky and Schnitzel von Krumm need no introduction. Her books have been regular award winners in New Zealand and are widely published in America, Australia and elsewhere.

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The judging panel for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2006 has been announced.

Two writers and a publisher make up the panel, and they're supported by eight category advisors and one Te Reo advisor.

The convenor is Lawrence Jones, Emeritus Professor at the University of Otago, and writer, editor and reviewer for numerous New Zealand literary journals.

Jones is joined by Linda Burgess, a Wellington-based novelist, scriptwriter and teacher of creative writing, and Aucklander Bob Ross, a publisher and advocate for New Zealand books.

This year’s advisors also boast strong writing and publishing credentials:

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Hilary Spurling has won the £25,000 (NZ$65,000) Whitbread prize with her biography of Matisse.

It's a surprise finish to the British-based awards: Spurling herself said she was ‘gobsmacked’. She’d had her money elsewhere, as biography is rarely the winner here. Indeed, this is only the fifth bio win in the 21-year history of the Whitbread - the last one to triumph was Claire Tomalin's life of Samuel Pepys in 2002.

Ali Smith was tipped to hit the money this year with her book The Accidental, but after 15 years writing Matisse the Master, A Life of Henri Matisse: Vol II, The Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954, Hils is no doubt chuffed.

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If you’re wondering what to read for the next leg of the holidays now that your bloke has gone back to work, the Whitbread prizes have been announced for the five categories of novel, first novel, biography, poetry and fiction.

Scottish writer Ali Smith won the Novel of the Year award with her third book, The Accidental. She beat Salman Rushdie and Nick Hornby – go girl! Her novel is about a 12-year-old girl on holiday in Norfolk. The judges said: ‘From the outset, The Accidental stood out as a glorious work of fiction that inspired both laughter and sadness and that none of us could stop reading.’ It was nominated for the Booker but lost to John Banville's The Sea. Her second novel, Hotel World, was shortlisted for both the Booker and Orange prizes so Ali’s obviously been doing something right – and it’s now official.

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Margaret Mahy (right), Alistair Te Ariki Campbell and Philip Temple were honoured at the 2005 Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement, announced at Premier House in Wellington.

Helen Clark said, “Margaret Mahy is an extraordinary storyteller whose tales have fed the imaginations of children throughout the world since the publication of her picture book, A Lion in the Meadow, in 1969.

“One of the first Polynesian voices to be published in New Zealand literature, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell has a long and distinguished career dating back to his first poetry collection, Mine Eyes Dazzle, in 1950.

“Philip Temple has made a major contribution to New Zealand’s non-fiction. His love of the outdoors is reflected in his books on mountaineering and exploration, while his biography on the Wakefield family has won considerable acclaim.

“These three writers uphold the status of these awards and their contributions to New Zealand society are remarkable.”

C.K. Stead, who picked up the 2005 Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers’ Fellowship earlier this year, attended the awards ceremony where his achievement was also acknowledged.

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