The NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award For Literature: A Nice Surprise!

I got a nice surprise on Monday: an email from Tina Shaw, Programme Manager of the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA), to say that I'd been selected as the 2010 recipient of the biennial Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature, first awarded in 2008 to poet, novelist and anthologist Emma Neale.

(It's important to note that this NZSA award is not the same as another, longer-established set of awards, the Janet Frame Literary Trust Awards.)

The award is open to authors of literary or imaginative fiction, as well as poetry, who are members of the New Zealand Society of Authors. Fortunately, it seems, I tick all those boxes!

I'm delighted to receive this award, not just because the money will come in handy to help me complete the short story collection I'm currently working on, but also because it's an honour to win an award associated with the name of Janet Frame.

Here's how Beatties Book Blog reported the news. Thanks, Graham, and thanks to the NZSA!