Neale wins 2025 Janet Frame Prize

Ōtepoti Dunedin novelist and poet Emma Neale has won the 2025 Janet Frame Prize, worth NZ$10,000.

Neale is a freelance editor for publishers in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, as well as the author of 14 works of fiction and poetry, including, Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit (Otago University Press, 2024), which won the Peter and Mary Biggs Prize for Poetry at the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Neale said, ‘The award has come at a time just when my editing workload has meant I wondered if I’d ever manage to find headspace to explore a longer fiction project again. This generous gift will allow me to set time aside early next year to really read attentively and experiment more with approaches to that project.

‘To hear that the trust has awarded me this prize has been nothing short of astonishing. Janet Frame’s work and example has helped to shape my private thoughts, my life, and my writing ever since I studied her fiction, autobiography and poetry in my twenties. Her poetic, complex, experimental work, with its richly figurative language that explores the interior life so deeply, still stands as a beacon for many creative artists.’

The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa (PEN NZ Inc) presents the biennial award in memory of Janet Frame to support a mid-career or established author to further their literary career. Neale was also the inaugural recipient of the award in 2008.

Category: Awards Local news