By Jon Bridges

Art and sport in New Zealand are, at least ostensibly, the very definition of the proverbial twain. (If that wasn't so, literary journal Sport's name would not be so full of ironic meaning.) Because of this, partisan Kiwi artists, musicians and writers need to find other areas in which to fulfil that most basic of New Zealand needs: to beat Australia.This is where the Commonwealth Writers' Prize comes in. I know it is wrong only to value New Zealand art that beats Australian art in competition, but if you don't want to, you don't have to think about how it could thrash its Aussie counterparts - doing the literary equivalent of hitting a six off the last ball to post a victory.

You can ignore that part and just savour the tang of the words. You can breathe deep breaths of their subtle nuances without even noticing the sweet smell of victory. As you may have guessed, there are New Zealand books up with a great chance of taking prizes from under the noses of the Australians. Leaf Salon and Huia Publishing are both excited at the prospect - Huia especially because one of their own authors, James George, is shortlisted for the South East Asian and South Pacific region prize. Lloyd Jones, Damien Wilkins, Carl Nixon and Paul Shannon round out George's team against an Australian selection captained by Peter Carey, who never seems to be out of form. If one of our team can take out the regionals and then the final (which, like the World Cup of Cricket, is to be decided later this year in the West Indies) it will be the first time a New Zealand book has won this prize. Previous winners include such great players as VS Naipaul, Mark Haddon, Zadie Smith, Peter Carey (the blimin' Ricky Ponting of literature) and Margaret Atwood.

And it's not only literature where news comes lately of our besting the Australians. Better By Design reports a victory for a New Zealand entry at the AGDA awards - a prestigious Australian graphics design awards open to thousands of entries from around the world. The winning design firm was the Alt Group. The client: Better By Design itself. There's nothing like practising what you coach I s'pose, especially if you hit it out of the park.

Tidbits: Not that the Australians are involved, but the best New Zealand poems of 2005 are here and you should make sure and look at them before the imminent publication of the best of 2006, which should be some time in March. I direct you particularly to Michele Amas's poems about her daughter, which I'm sure would beat any Australian daughter-based poetry with many wickets to spare.

Twice in two days I came across the same quote from Carl Sagan: "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known". The second time I read it was at Huia Publishers where Keri Hulme has a blog. If you idolise the reclusive author like many New Zealand readers and writers, this blog is a brilliant insight.