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Announcement by the Royal Society of New Zealand21 November 2007Winners of the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science WritingThe winners of the fiction and non-fiction sections of the inaugural Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing were announced by the Editor of the New Zealand Listener, Pamela Stirling, at the Science Honours Dinner in Dunedin, 20 November. They are Bryan Walpert, School of English and Film Studies at Massey University in Palmerston North, and Alison Ballance, producer at Natural History New Zealand in Dunedin.This writing prize was established by the Royal Society following the interest created by the Are Angels OK? Project, which was a collaboration between creative writers and scientists. It is named after poet Bill Manhire, to honour the role he played as creative director. 182 entries were received; 57 were non-fiction. Twenty entries were shortlisted by Amy Brown for the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington, and the final winners selected by Kim Hill, Radio New Zealand National presenter, and Companion of the Royal Society. The theme of the first competition was climate change. Each winner receives $2,500, and their entries will be published in the New Zealand Listener. Kim Hill said, “Alison’s (non-fiction) entry, Touchstones, is a beautifully written and very personal reflection about a particular part of the planet that she obviously knows intimately. By turning the technicalities of climate change into the possibility of no longer having "glaciers and rock wrens", she gives real and poetic impact to the prosaic litanies of scientific reports and forecasts. But the piece is also grounded in solid scientific understanding and historical context... a gem of concise eloquence.” “Bryan Walpert’s story, 16Planets, is a very bleak and disturbing story of a world in which the most innocent and familiar things have become destructive... the Kiwi deck, mum driving her son to his rugby game, returning stranded starfish to the ocean... a world in which the big picture is so dark that there's no longer any consolation in small pleasures. Of the several entries trying to express the uncomfortable mix of personal and political in a time dominated by apprehension about climate change, this one did it best. A great piece of writing, it conveys the despair and confusion of a bloke who's lost his bearings. The author has crafted his story so that it carries a large point about climate change, but at the same time manages to move the reader at an emotional level. That's clever.” Ms Hill also commended entries by Barbara Heslop of Dunedin (non-fiction) and Eden Carter Wood of Wellington (fiction). President of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Neville Jordan said “The number of great New Zealand science books that have been published this year – by Bernard Beckett, Paul Callaghan and Kim Hill, Peter Gluckman, Hamish Campbell, Alison Ballance and others – show that publishers are picking up on the public’s desire to know more about science and be part of the discussions around it. But they want an interesting, accessible read. We want to encourage a lively and imaginative genre of science writing in New Zealand. This writing prize might help to get some new authors started.” The theme of next year’s writing competition will be based on Darwin and the theory of evolution, and will be announced in the New Zealand Listener, in May 2008. The other shortlisted entries were: NON-FICTION SHORT LIST
FICTION SHORT LIST
For further information, contact Glenda.lewis@rsnz.org , 04 470 5758 or 027 210 0997.
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