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Two years ago Carl Nixon won the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award; this year the author will be a judge in the same competition. He joins multi-award winning writers, Dame Fiona Kidman and Kate de Goldi on the judging panel.

Two years ago Carl Nixon won the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award; this year the author will be a judge in the same competition. He joins multi-award winning writers, Dame Fiona Kidman and Kate de Goldi on the judging panel.

Nixon, who will judge the award’s novice category says as a past winner he knows that success in the Katherine Mansfield competition can be an important milestone in a literary career.

"I'm delighted to be a judge in this year's BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards. The next great New Zealand writer may be out there just waiting for the motivation that this country's pre-eminent short story contest competition gives."
The opening date for submissions is 1 May and entry forms are available online or from any BNZ store.

Fiona Kidman will judge the premier category which carries a prize of $10,000. The novice prize is worth $1,500 and Kate de Goldi who will judge the young adult category will be awarding the winning student $1,500 and the same amount for the winner’s school.

In addition to the cash prize, the premier winner joins a veritable who’s who of the New Zealand writing community. Former winners of this prize include CK Stead, Vincent O’ Sullivan, Maurice Shadbolt, Frank Sargeson, Keri Hulme and more recently, Charlotte Grimshaw.

All writers whether accomplished or just beginning are encouraged to submit stories as there are categories to suit everyone. Entries close on 30 June 2009.

BNZ head of brand and communications, Jo Kelly says the Bank is proud and excited to have sponsored the Katherine Mansfield Award for their entire 50 year history.

"This year is a real celebration of the longstanding partnership we have with Katherine Mansfield and the awards - the country’s finest in short fiction - that take her name. We are thrilled to have made many New Zealand writers better off by winning this award."

The BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards are New Zealand’s longest running creative writing awards. They commemorate New Zealand’s best known writer, and help New Zealand writers achieve recognition in their own country.

The Bank has sponsored the awards since their inception in 1959; Sir Harold Beauchamp, Katherine Mansfield’s father was the first BNZ Chairman of Directors, a position he held for seventeen years.

The winners of this year BNZ Katherine Mansfield awards will be announced at a ceremony convened by Miranda Harcourt at 5.30pm on Thursday 1 October in Wellington.

BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards 2009 judges

Dame Fiona Kidman is the author of more than 20 books, mainly novels, short stories and poetry.
Several of her works have been awarded major prizes, including the fiction prize in the New Zealand Book Awards for The Book of Secrets, and more recently, The Captive Wife was joint winner of the Readers' Choice Award in the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

She is a strong literary advocate being a past president of PEN, involved with the New Zealand Book Council since its inception in 1972 and with literary festivals around the country.

Among her fiction work, Kidman has written three short story collections: The Foreign Woman, Mrs Dixon and Friends and Unsuitable Friends. Over the past three years she has edited the annual anthology, The Best New Zealand Fiction. In 2006 she was the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Fellow in Menton. She holds a DNZM and OBE for services to literature.

Kate De Goldi is the author of three novels for young adults, a collection of short fiction for adults and three picture books for children. She reviews children’s books regularly on Radio New Zealand National’s Saturday programme with broadcaster, Kim Hill.  She also reviews books on TVNZ’s Good Morning show.
Kate tours schools nationwide, running creative writing workshops for students and teachers.  She is a regular speaker on children’s and young adult literature at conferences and seminars. In 2001 Kate was made a NZ Arts Foundation Arts Laureate.

In 2005, Kate’s picture book Clubs: A Lolly Leopold Story won the Picture Book category and was the 2005 Book of the Year in the New Zealand Post Book Awards.  Her latest book, The 10pm Question is a finalist in the 2009 New Zealand Post Book Awards and was one of the most critically acclaimed best selling novels of 2008. Kate de Goldi lives in Wellington.

Carl Nixon is a professional full-time writer of plays, short stories and novels. He won the premier category of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards in 2007 and was runner up for the same award in 1999. He has also twice won the Sunday Star Times Short Story Contest (1997, 1999).

His collection of short stories, Fish ‘n’ Chip Shop Song went to number one on the NZ best selling fiction list and was short listed for the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Best first book Southeast Asia and South Pacific Region. His stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, and over a dozen have been broadcast by Radio New Zealand.
Carl was the 2007 Ursula Bethell / Creative New Zealand Writer-in-Residence at Canterbury University, where he completed a novel, Rocking Horse Road.

His recent theatrical scripts include: an adaptation of Lloyd Jones novel The Book of Fame, and an adaptation of Nobel Prize winner J M Coetzee’s novel Disgrace for Auckland Theatre Company.  Carl Nixon lives in Christchurch with his wife and two small children.