Finalists for literary awards announced

Finalists for the 2018 Ronald Hugh Morrieson Literary Awards have just been released.

Awards organiser and South Taranaki District Council’s children and young adults librarian, Pam Jones, says that once again, in the 31st year of the awards, entries continued to grow.

“This shows/proves the value of keeping a local competition like this alive,” says Pam.

“A large proportion of entrants have never entered the competition before so new writers continue to emerge. This brings fresh views and voices to the rich collection of local stories about life in our community, from people living within that community.”

“It’s exciting to see more and more Taranaki people taking a respite from their fast-paced and stressful world to set their imagination free to create local stories that both entertain and educate us,” she says.

“We are richer for hearing these stories. Our community is richer for gathering these stories”

One of the categories that took the biggest jump was the research article with 23 entries, compared to 7 in 2017.

Judge Matt Rilkoff says he wasn’t surprised by the jump in interest, as the subject was one that all young people could relate to, to discuss the ways small town New Zealand has changed due to technology.

“This year’s articles covered all manner of issues to do with technology, from the doctors treating Pa¯ tea patients over the internet, to whether cell phones are good or bad (the jury is out) to how farming has been changed by advances in tech,” he says. “The articles demonstrated a deep understanding of how technology is changing lives and, against the teen technophile stereotype, a scepticism of how good it is for humanity.“

The finalists are:

■ Maria Cunningham — New Plymouth

■ Alyx Devlin (Eltham)

■ Bruce Finer (Ha¯ wera)

■ Sasha Finer (Ha¯ wera High School)

■ Stuart Greenhill (Stratford)

■ Maia-Lane Rupapera Maeke (St Mary’s Diocesan School)

■ Lexi McQuaig (O¯ pu¯ nake High School)

■ Alex Paish (St Mary’s Diocesan School)

■ Darly Paraha (Ha¯ wera)

■ Chris Purdon (Ha¯ wera)

■ Monique Radford (St Mary’s Diocesan School)

■ Holly Stewart (Ha¯ wera)

■ Michaela Stoneman (Pa¯ tea)

■ Everyone is invited to attend the Awards Ceremony at the TSB Hub, Waih¯ı Road, 7pm on Wednesday 24 October, where the judges will comment on their respective categories and highlight the works that won them over.

RSVP with numbers attending to contact@stdc.govt.nz by Monday October 22.