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This competition is to acknowledge excellence in creative writing in the Short Story genre. The contest is open to any emerging writer residing in New Zealand or Australia, who has had fewer than four stories/articles published in any format (print or digital). |
Charlotte Randall is the author of six published novels. Her first novel, Dead Sea Fruit (1995), won the Reed Fiction Award for unpublished manuscripts and Best First Book, Southeast Asia/South Pacific, in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Her second novel, The Curative (2000), was runner up in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and afterwards was made into a successful play and serialised for national radio. Her novels What Happen Then Mr Bones? (2004) and the Crocus Hour (2008) were also finalists in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Her latest novel is Hokitika Town.
She has been awarded two prestigious writers' residencies, including the writer in residence at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University and The Ursula Bethell/Creative NZ Residency at Canterbury University.
Charlotte also writes short stories. She has been published in the literary journal Landfall and, out of four entries, has twice made the shortlist of stories receiving special comment from the judges in the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award.
Owen Bullock has published poetry, haiku, tanka, haibun, short stories, essays and reviews in over one hundred publications in eight countries. His books include a collection of poetry, sometimes the sky isn’t big enough, (Steele Roberts, New Zealand, 2010); haiku: wild camomile (Post Pressed, Australia, 2009), and the novella, A Cornish Story (Palores, UK, 2010). His poetry and haiku have won awards on numerous occasions, including 2nd Prize in the New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition and Co-Winner of the Haiku International Association Competition, both 2009.
Owen gained an M.A. (Hons) from the University of Waikato. He has been an editor of a number of literary journals, including Poetry NZ, and was the inaugural poetry editor of Bravado. He is currently on the International Editorial Board for both Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol. 4, and the online journal, Axon: Creative Explorations (University of Canberra). Owen tutors the Poetry Course at NZ Writers' College.
Sonny Whitelaw has enjoyed a successful career as a writer for more than thirty years. Her work as a photojournalist has appeared in dozens of international magazines including National Geographic. She won a Draco Award for her first novel, The Rhesus Factor and all eight of her novels including five based on the television series, Stargate, have been international bestsellers.
A qualified adult educator with an MA in Creative Writing, Sonny taught writing courses to adults and teenagers in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. In 2008 she moved with her teenage son to a small lifestyle property in Oxford, Canterbury.
When she’s not having an enormous amount of fun exploring the South Island, Sonny divides her time between researching and writing scientific reports, editing fiction and non-fiction manuscripts, and working on a young adult science fantasy series, The Runes of Creation.
Sonny tutors the Write a Novel Course at NZ Writers' College.
Paul Smith is a veteran journalist, author and former media commentator. He began his reporting career on the Auckand Star in 1964 and then went to London for three years to work on newspapers and magazines. He was a senior reporter for the New Zealand Herald, Dominion and the New Zealand Times.
Paul was New Zealand correspondent for the London Standard for 20 years, and the Sydney Morning Herald's correspondent for five. As a freelancer his stories have appeared in magazines ranging from the Readers' Digest to the Guardian and Asian Wall Street Journal.
Paul is a winner of the Sir David Beattie Award for best news reporter in the print media, and a runner up in the 2002 Peace Awards. In 1986 he was awarded a Press Fellowship to Wolfson College Cambridge.
A past President of the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN), he has written six best-selling non-fiction books, ranging from social histories to a text on the social impacts of broadcasting de-regulation. Paul has also published short stories and a radio play. He tutors the Magazine Journalism Course at NZ Writers' College.
CRITIQUES: We unfortunately do not have the time to supply a critique for each submission. If you wish to receive a professional one- to two-page report of your work, please state your requirement on your title page. We charge $45.00 per critique.
COMPETITION RULES: