(Image: Archi Banal)
(Image: Archi Banal)

BooksMarch 8, 2023

And your Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2023 finalists are…

Books editor
Guest writer
(Image: Archi Banal)
(Image: Archi Banal)

The 44 longlisted books have been whittled down to a shortlist of 16. Thoughts provided below by books editor Claire Mabey and poet Louise Wallace. 

Let’s get right to it. We’ve got 12 publishers across 16 titles which is an indication of health for our publishing sector. We’ve got previous predictions blown right out of the water; and others landing nicely in place with just a few surprises as we go. Asterisks means it’s a debut and in the running for best first book award. Winners are announced in May at a live ceremony at the Auckland Writers Festival.

Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction ($64,000 prize)

Better the Blood by Michael Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue) (Simon & Schuster)

Kāwai: For Such a Time as This by Monty Soutar (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Kahungunu) (Bateman Books)

Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press)

The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

I got momentarily sidetracked by the news that John Mitchinson, publisher and host of the best books podcast ever Backlisted, will assist the three Aotearoa judges to pick the winner. As a fangirl of Backlisted and of John (who wrote this poignant and insightful piece on Salman Rushdie) it’s a fun fact that he’ll be lending his astonishingly well-read eye to four tip top Aotearoa novels.

Anywho. My predictions for this category were waaaayyy off. Except for Chidgey. Had Chidgey not made it I’d have run down the street naked but my neighbours have been spared. This time. However, I’m not displeased. This is a fine pack of four accomplished, complex novels and a refreshing illumination of historical fiction, crime and rural stories.

While I’m bummed for Coco Solid’s How to Loiter in a Turf War, I’m hoping that this widely acclaimed novel will at least receive the best first book award in this category. The rules for those awards are: “If there are no debut authors shortlisted in a category, the best first book award will be presented to a first time author longlisted in that category. If there are debuts longlisted in a category, judges make a selection from the books submitted in that category. There is one BFB prize presented per category.”

I’m extra delighted for Cristina Sanders’ rip-roaring Mrs Jewell and the Wreck of the General Grant and publisher The Cuba Press: an indie triumph alongside Te Herenga Waka University Press who are not unused to triumphing, but who are small and mighty nonetheless.

Stephanie Johnson, convenor of judges for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, says: “Two stellar historical novels rival for their portrayal of lost worlds, one set in eighteenth-century Aotearoa, the other on a nineteenth-century sub-Antarctic island. And in the other two finalists, contemporary New Zealand, urban and rural, is vividly and memorably evoked in tightly written crime and through the eyes of a wild but insightful bird.”

In terms of the top prize come May, my pick is still with Chidgey’s The Axeman’s Carnival. This writer has gone from strength to strength and now sits among the most prolific and masterful novelists working today. I think Tama the magpie will be hard to beat (and likely a very sore loser if his twitter profile is anything to go by).

Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry ($12,000)

Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised by Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) (Auckland University Press)

People Person by Joanna Cho (Te Herenga Waka University Press)*

Sedition by Anahera Maire Gildea (Ngāti Tukorehe) (Taraheke | Bush Lawyer)*

We’re All Made of Lightning by Khadro Mohamed (We Are Babies Press, Tender Press)*

If last year’s Ockhams poetry shortlist was “surprises ahoy”, then this year’s is “surprises ahoy-hoy”. Moving from the longlist to the shortlist, many of the collections I considered frontrunners have now gone. But hey, spoiler alert – awards are subjective! And here, the judges have created an extremely level playing field, with three of the four poets up for best first book. 

Joanna Cho’s luminous People Person feels filled with magic, a tender, funny book that makes its own rules. Khadro Mohamed’s We’re All Made of Lightning is a sensory and transformative journey – the poet feeling their way through perhaps unanswerable questions. Like Cho and Mohamed, Alice Te Punga Somerville plays with form and fractures (even footnotes), in an analysis of power and those who hold it (or who may think they do). Anahera Maire Gildea’s Sedition interrogates neocolonisation, writing with anger, strength and sadness, and like Somerville, Gildea hosts her readers in a room filled with voices – past, present and future.

All women of colour, these shortlisted poets have a huge amount to say and it is our job to listen. All four collections contain standout poems, moments, lines and language that could carry them across the finish line in first place. My feeling is that Te Punga Somerville and Gildea’s collections have the complexity and nuance to mean they will be vying for the top prize, but as someone with a proven dismal track record for making successful picks, I’d recommend supporting these shortlisted poets (and your local bookstore) and deciding for yourself!

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Anna Rawhiti-Connell
— Senior writer

Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction ($12,000)

Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand by Nick Bollinger (Auckland University Press)

Robin White: Something is Happening Here edited by Sarah Farrar, Jill Trevelyan and Nina Tonga (Te Papa Press and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki)

Secrets of the Sea: The Story of New Zealand’s Native Sea Creatures by Robert Vennell (HarperCollins)

Te Motunui Epa by Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Ātiawa) (Bridget Williams Books)

My predictions were off by one. But phwoar, this category is still such a nail-biter. These books are all astonishing: the production! the evident literal years of research and thought put into them page after page!

Jared Davidson, convenor of judges for the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction, says the innovative design and compelling storytelling found in this this year’s shortlist have redefined what an illustrated non-fiction work can be: “Zine-like textures on uncoated stock, elegant typography across space and time, treasure-troves of littoral illustrations [meaning relating to shore or lake] and taonga tuku iho that give voice to their travels are signs of a confident moment in book production. Nothing here is pretty-for-pretty’s sake: visual excellence amplifies the immensely relevant and engaging content of these original books.”

My pick is still with Te Motunui Epa by Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Ātiawa) (Bridget Williams Books), an epic story of taonga traveling the world and back again. It’s extraordinary, enriching and unique. But I think every one of these books would sit well in any library home or otherwise and deserve this second round of celebration.  

General Non-Fiction Award ($12,000 prize)

A Fire in the Belly of Hineāmaru: A Collection of Narratives about Te Tai Tokerau Tūpuna by Melinda Webber (Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Hau, Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whakaue) and Te Kapua O’Connor (Ngāti Kurī, Pohūtiare) (Auckland University Press)

Downfall: The Destruction of Charles Mackay by Paul Diamond (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) (Massey University Press)

Grand: Becoming my Mother’s Daughter by Noelle McCarthy (Penguin, Penguin Random House)*

The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi by Ned Fletcher (Bridget Williams Books)*

So this is the category that had the extra long longlist (14 instead of 10) in recognition of the amount of non-fiction that Aotearoa produces. And I know I’ve said it but I will say it again: I don’t understand how such wildly different forms (e.g. memoir versus academic treatise) can be judged alongside each other. The need for an extra longlist maybe points to needing a whole other category (Creative Non-Fiction). 

In saying that, my predictions were friggen close: off by one. I’m sad for Dame Fiona Kidman and So Far, For Now which is a haunting collection of personal essays. But this shortlist is a cracker. I’d have been astonished if either of Grand by Noelle McCarthy or A Fire in the Belly of Hineāmaru: A Collection of Narratives about Te Tai Tokerau Tūpuna hadn’t made the list. Two very different but important books that turn our attentions to whakapapa, and the narratives written in our histories near and far.

Delighted that Paul Diamond’s moving labour of love, Downfall: The Destruction of Charles Mackay is here (reviewed on The Spinoff by Victor Rodger); and as soon as I received Ned Fletcher’s The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi my bookwitch senses whispered “awardssssss”. It’s simply a mammoth piece of work, astonishing in depth and scope (hats off also to Morgan Godfery who reviewed it for us).

Anna Rawhiti-Connell (The Spinoff’s very own), convenor of judges for the General Non-Fiction Award, says the diversity of form in the shortlist showcases the breadth of non-fiction writing in New Zealand, and a mastery of craft: “Each finalist offers an evolution and an innovation – whether it be in form and style, command of language and story-telling or in what they contribute to our shared knowledge and understanding of ourselves and each other. They are all books people should read, and importantly, they are books that fulfil the promise of reward for doing so.”

Well said. Lots of rewards: go forth and read them and see if you can pick a winner. Then let me know. My instincts are still saying Grand by Noelle McCarthy but in this category, I think it’s anyone’s game. These books are magnificent.

Congratulations to all of the authors, designers, editors, proofreaders, publicists and publishers and bow down to the judges who are making the hard calls for the big day come May:

This year’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges are: bestselling author, critic and creative writing teacher Stephanie Johnson (convenor); editor and literature assessor John Huria (Ngāi Tahu, Muaūpoko, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Rangi); and Rotorua bookseller Jemma Morrison (Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction); Dunedin poet, author and creative writing tutor Diane Brown (convenor); poet and kaiako Serie Barford; and Wellington poet and Grimshaw-Sargeson Fellow Gregory Kan (Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry); award-winning writer, historian and archivist Jared Davidson (convenor); writer and curator Dr Anna-Marie White (Te Ātiawa); and veteran television producer Taualeo’o Stephen Stehlin MNZM (Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction); writer and award-winning columnist Anna Rawhiti-Connell (convenor); prize-winning author, academic and researcher Alison Jones; and historian Professor Te Maire Tau (Ūpoko of Ngāi Tūāhuriri, a hapu of Ngāi Tahu) (General Non-Fiction Award).

International Fiction judge John Mitchinson (UK) is a writer and publisher, the co-founder of Unbound, the crowdfunding platform dedicated to books, and co-host of Backlisted, one of the world’s most popular book podcasts. Before that he helped create the BBC TV show QI. He grew up in New Zealand and has keen interest in its arts and culture.

Keep going!
Freya Daly Sadgrove (Photo: Supplied / Design: Tina Tiller)
Freya Daly Sadgrove (Photo: Supplied / Design: Tina Tiller)

BooksMarch 7, 2023

Go bigger and push harder: An interview with Freya Daly Sadgrove

Books editor
Freya Daly Sadgrove (Photo: Supplied / Design: Tina Tiller)
Freya Daly Sadgrove (Photo: Supplied / Design: Tina Tiller)

Poet and theatre artist Freya Daly Sadgrove talks with books editor Claire Mabey ahead of Freya’s new poetry-in-performance show Whole New Woman.

Claire Mabey: You just opened a gig for Peaches here in Wellington. How did that happen and what was it like?

Freya Daly Sadgrove: How it happened is Nathan Joe. I am his baby and he nepo-babied me. We’ve worked on Show Ponies together and he’s the Creative Director of Auckland Pride and when he was asked by the Peaches people for suggestions of opening acts, he was like hmmmm time to push the poetry agenda!!! That’s what I imagine he was like anyway. He put my name forward, and I just think that was so dope and interesting of him? I don’t know, it’s just not something you expect to be asked to do when you are a poet, let alone when you’ve spent most of your life in Wellington and are, you know, used to a sort of smallness. Open for Peaches. I feel like Nathan’s thinking of a really big picture of the arts – presumably because he’s making and supporting work in so many different places and forms and ways. I Love And Respect Nathan Joe.

The experience itself was fucking magnificent. For one thing, I hadn’t performed for almost a year, really, and I just… you know, I just… it’s embarrassing for me (only cos of society) but the best thing I like to do is prance around on a stage saying exactly what I mean while my talented friends have a big hoon on their instruments. Samuel Austin was playing the drums and it’s just so fun to share the stage with him. And we got to do that for like, 20 minutes! And I don’t think anyone got bored! Some of them even bopped! And I felt fucking alive lol. So it was a very huge and usefully-timed reassurance that my show probably isn’t gonna suck too hard, which obviously has been a worry obviously.

But the massivest thing about opening for Peaches was seeing Peaches perform. I am not exaggerating when I say it was life-changing. I was open-mouthed the entire time. The craft!!!! The commitment!!!! The total absence of boundaries!!!! 

You’re behind the electrifying genius that is Show Ponies, a kind of poetry cabaret where poets perform with back-up dancers and live music. It’s transformed the way audiences can access and experience poetry. Is the style and format for Whole New Woman riffing off Show Ponies? 

Yes, big time. The first time we did Show Ponies it was like, oh true, we can do anything we want. It’s properly a vibe for the audience. There’s totally room to go bigger and push harder. Kirsten McDougall who was the publicist at THWUP (VUP at the time) was like well hey Freya you could make a whole show out of what you’re doing there in your set, and I was like oh shit true ok yeah cool I’m on it. 

Then lockdown happened and time passed and covid covid covid. And my mental health stabilised and my thoughts progressed and my horizons widened, so my idea of the show kept growing, with nowhere to become real. It was hard to know where to like, stop the transformation represented in the show because time kept passing and I kept transforming IRL and getting new things to say and ways to say them. But you can’t say everything in one show. Anyway I’m off track fuck. Certainly it’s always been growing from the seed of my first Show Ponies set, alongside Show Ponies’s own evolution, but secret and unperformed.

Illustration of Freya Daly Sadgrove performing in Show Ponies. By Callum Devlin.

Whole New Woman is a solo show and something you’ve been working on for a while now, can you tell us what’s it about? What’s the vibe?

I don’t know if it can really be called a solo show, even though it’s very like, Me Me Me the Big Freya Show. But there’s two people with me on the stage the whole time – Samuel Austin (drummer) and Ingrid Saker (guitarist) – and they’re very much present, they’re very much doing a big powerful thing that actually makes the show. I’ve known them both for a fucklong time actually, over a decade. We’ve all done theatre together before, in quite foundational times in our lives, and it’s pretty special to be getting back on the stage with them now in this new context.

And yeah, I’ve been working on it for over three years lol. It’s evolved massively over that time. To begin with it was gonna be Head Girl: The Show, an extension of me and Thomas Friggens’ Show Ponies set – a kind of Show Pony-ified stage adaptation of my book. The plan was for that to go up at BATS in April 2020 and then go to Edinburgh Book Fest, lol, lol, lol, RIP. But I wrote Head Girl over like 4 or 5 years in my very mentally ill twenties, and I was already looking backwards at it when it was published; I was already new and different by then and ready to move ahead, so the show had to shift somewhere new too. 

It’s not like completely out the gate new though, the vibe is still mental illnessy as – but still in a cool fun interesting way imo. It’s definitely to some degree responding to the book. It’s about transformation. It’s also about consciously trying to throw off that lifelong goddamn shame of asking to be seen and listened to, which currently has me by the throat. You might not necessarily suspect that if you have seen me perform lol, but that’s legit the only time I get free of it.

The OG poster for Head Girl: The Show. Design by Callum Devlin.

So Head Girl is your first collection of poetry, can you tell us more about how you’ve woven that material into Whole New Woman? 

There’s seven poems from Head Girl in the show. I have on-and-off worries that I’m flogging a dead horse. Especially when I am “learning my lines” I’m like good lord can I let this poor sad period of my life rest, but when I am rehearsing the performance of them, I’m like ah, there is still some power here, and certainly there is meaning I want to draw from and reflect on and reframe from a new perspective. And the show is about transforming into a Whole New Woman, and without the context of the Old Girl that transformation wouldn’t land as hard I don’t think. 

And so, yeah, the show transforms as well. The form of it transforms. Basically I’m pivoting to rockstar? For my thirties. I have written some songs. We are performing some songs. I am terrified to fucks. But also I’ve recently become very very powerful and I can totally actually do it I’m pretty sure.

Creating a live performance show is obviously a lot different to writing a poetry collection: how does the process differ? Do you enjoy one more than the other?

It definitely is different, but actually because of the panny d and various cancellations and delays and shit, I’ve spent a freaking lot of the past three years thinking about and writing this show in isolation, which is pretty similar to how I wrote my book. Similarly, at points it drove me a bit fucking mental. The thing that saved me each time was yanking my head out of my navel (or was it my ass) and talking it out with people.

So then actually getting to be in a room with my collaborators is only ever a joy. I have the excellent fortune of knowing and working with musicians and theatremakers who are really on their shit, really generous, really fun, kind and funny, and importantly beautifully accepting of my chaotic vibe. I feel so good and chill and stoked to work with everyone who’s been involved, man, it’s everything. I definitely enjoy that way more than sitting angsting in a room by myself and sweating out one word every forty minutes, yeah.

Do you prefer to encounter poetry as a performance? Do you think more people would love poetry if they saw it performed live more often?

Weirdly I’ve never asked myself this question before. I suppose, yeah, I do prefer it – even poetry on the page I prefer to experience by reading aloud. Cos like, sound, you know? It’s essential to poetry. Can’t finish a poem without reading it aloud. 

In year 12 Mr Watson read aloud from The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy and I was like ohhh shiiiit. Like damn, he knew how to read poetry. I still read those poems with his cadence; the rhythms of Little Red Cap and Mrs Quasimodo and Mrs Beast are all tattooed into my … er, soul? They’re definitely tattooed somewhere. Fuck I loved school lol fuck.

Yeah… I’d be lying if I didn’t say Show Ponies is my favourite way to experience poetry. I’d be lying if I didn’t say every poem performed in every Show Ponies show hasn’t moved me like… all the fuckin way. And enough people have said to me that they didn’t get or care about poetry before they saw Show Ponies that I feel pretty confident that yes people would love poetry more if they saw it performed – really performed – yeah.

I first performed my poetry when I was 11 lol. I got wheeled onstage in a wheelbarrow and I wore pajamas and a top hat. Wow… not as much of a Whole New Woman as I think.

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Madeleine Chapman
— Editor

You’ve been wonderfully honest in the past about how difficult it can be trying to be an artist in New Zealand. What would make it feel less demoralising do you think? 

Okay doing Show Ponies in Auckland for Pride and Samesame But Different was like, extremely undemoralising, and the reason was: I had a real producer. I.e. not just me flying by the absolute seat of my pants, trying and failing to know what I’m doing the whole time. And that producer, Izzy (mononym, powerful), also procured a team of several people to do what I have been attempting to do in various degrees of alone-ness with Show Ponies for over three years. Tears come to my eyes to think of it!!!

I’ve never had enough funding to pay a proper producer, only enough to underpay me to produce (because I’m not a proper producer and I’m always lowballing my funding applications). I won’t do Show Ponies again without one, because I can’t go back now. The whole week leading up to the show I was going, how on earth do I feel this mentally okay? This has never happened before. I think a lot of artists accept a fairly high degree of mental fuckery tryna make stuff, because how else will it get made? But then I had Izzy going, Freya it does not have to be like this, I am here to look after you and the show, I don’t think artists should have to feel destroyed by their work. So, what would make being an artist less demoralising in NZ? More Izzys. How do we get more Izzys? Perhaps there should be (more?) specific arts administrator funding/training/mentoring/databases/community-building. Not all artists hate producing, but fuck, it’s not in my wheelhouse, it’s not where I feel confident. Where I feel confident is in the dreamy thoughty weird chaotic art-making artist-feelings-nurturing place, and the art is not as good when I can’t afford to spend time there.

But yeah, Izzy working on the show and getting that team together was possible cos of funding. It’s always funding, obviously. This time most of that funding came directly from the community – through the crowdfunding campaign that Nathan Joe absolutely busted his ass to make successful – Pride Elevates. Oh funding. Just… you know. Govvy baby… can u chuck more money in tha arts pls and a UBI thanks x

What are your hopes for Whole New Woman?

Do it again, for sure. Tour it. Make it bigger. Get backup dancers. Do it with three drummers onstage. Not kidding. I feel like it’s got some legs. Also my hopes is, while it goes around on its legs, that I can also be doing something the fuck else. I been living with this show in my head for so fucking long and I have more new shit to make. I have ideas!

Imagining you’re being forced to convince someone who a) says they hate poetry; and b) also isn’t into theatre; how would you try and convince them to give your show a go?

To toot my own horn (or to absolutely own myself, can’t tell which) a lot of people have told me they don’t like poetry but they do like mine. So, suck on that for one thing. I’m a gateway drug baybee. For another, the theatre aspect is really just that it’s in a theatre. I’d say, do you like live music? Do you like badass people going hard? Do you like Sam Duckor-Jones’s visual art? Do you like a really interesting cool time???? This show is not like other girls. (However it is in a community with other girls and loves and respects other girls and will help you to love and respect other girls too).

Whole New Woman by Freya Daly Sadgrove is playing at BATS Theatre on 9 – 11 March (currently sold out but worth trying your luck on the door). You can purchase Head Girl by Freya Daly Sadgrove (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25) from Unity Books Wellington and Auckland. 

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