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Hereaka awarded 2021 NZSA Beatson Fellowship

Wellington-based novelist and playwright Whiti Hereaka has been awarded the 2021 New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship, worth NZ$10,000 (A$9549).

Hereaka will use the fellowship to complete the research and development for her new novel Ariā.

Of her win, Hereaka said: ‘I’d like to acknowledge the generosity of the Beatsons in setting up the fellowship and thank Peter for his ongoing support of writers … One of the strange conundrums of a career in writing is that as you progress it seems to get harder to find the time to concentrate on writing. The stipend attached to the fellowship gives me my writing time back.’

Judges James Norcliffe and Jillian Sullivan said the high calibre of applications for the fellowship this year was ‘inspiring’ and ‘affirming of the creative life’ in New Zealand.

Established in 2001, the annual fellowship is open to any NZSA members working on a fiction, nonfiction, poetry or drama project. It provides authors with the ‘valuable opportunity to be economically secure while they bring a project to completion’.

For more information on the fellowship, see the website.

 

Category: Awards Local news