Jacqueline Leckie awarded 2024 NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship

By Ōtepoti He Puna Auaha | Dunedin UNESCO City Of Literature | Posted: Wednesday Oct 02, 2024

The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN NZ Inc) has announced Jacqueline Leckie as the recipient of the 2024 NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship, worth NZ$10,000.

Leckie is a nonfiction writer, editor and researcher based in Ōtepoti. She was awarded the fellowship to work on her book with the working title Meg Campbell (1937–2007): Aroha and Resistance, telling the life story of poet Meg Campbell, whose story ‘has remained within the shadows of her renowned creative husband, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell’.

Judges Paddy Richardson and Laurence Fearnley said Leckie’s project is ‘one of national significance as it is the first biography of poet Meg Campbell and will add to the history of NZ women’s literature in an original and engaging manner’.

Also shortlisted for this year’s fellowship were Alison Ballance, Chris Bourke, Majella Cullinane, Lee Murray, Vivienne Plumb, and Kerrin Sharpe.

The NZSA Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship is an annual award open to any NZSA member working on a new fiction, nonfiction, poetry or drama project. Last year’s recipient was Laurence Fearnley for her novel with the working title ‘The Palette Club (A tender violence)’, the fourth in a series of novels based around the five senses.