Southern authors in final cut for top literary prizes

By ODT - Tim Scott | Posted: Wednesday Mar 05, 2025

Southern authors in final cut for top literary prizes | Otago Daily Times Online News

A Dunedin novelist says she is ‘‘really touched’’ to have been named a finalist for New Zealand’s richest writing prize — for the fourth time.

Laurence Fearnley and Emma Neale, both from Dunedin, were among 16 authors announced as finalists today in the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Books Awards — whittled down from a total of 43 works longlisted last month.

Fearnley’s novel At The Grand Glacier Hotel is among four works in the running for the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.

Neale’s collection Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit is up for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry.

Fearnley said she was honoured and ‘‘really touched’’ to be named as a finalist.

It was common for southern authors to feel a bit isolated and removed from the New Zealand literary scene, so it was nice when a book set in the South Island was noticed, she said.

‘‘It's a very good feeling to be part of that conversation and to be included.’’

The novel, set in a hotel in Franz Josef, told the story of a woman rediscovering her physical abilities while recovering from surgery, she said.

Fearnley previously won the fiction prize in 2011 for her book The Hut Builder, was the runner-up in 2008 and was also shortlisted in 2001.

This year, she would be going up against two other former award winners including Kirsty Gunn, for her Otago University Press-published collection of short stories Pretty Ugly.

Neale said she was ‘‘stunned and happy at the same time’’ upon learning the news. It was the first time she had been shortlisted for a work of poetry.

Also published by Otago University Press, it featured poems on everything from the unwitting tricks our minds played, to the ‘‘outright corruption of imperialism’’ and identity fraud.

‘‘They look at some of the dreams and stories that we weave for our own survival.’’

Being shortlisted felt like an award in itself, and feeling that the judges had read her work and seen merit in it was ‘‘really, really gratifying’’, she said.

The winners will be announced at a public ceremony on May 14 during the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival.