The Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award was a competition for short stories in New Zealand which ran every two years from 1959 to 2003 and every year from 2004 to 2014. The competition had multiple categories, including an essay section until 1963, a supreme award for short stories, and awards for novice and young writers. It was sponsored by the

Bank of New Zealand Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) is one of New Zealand's Big Four (banking), big four banks and has been operating in the country since the first office was opened in Auckland in October 1861 followed shortly after by the first branch in Dunedin in D ...

and in 2010 was renamed the BNZ Literary Awards. Since the competition's disestablishment in 2015 the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society has presented the annual Mansfield Short Story Award to high school students in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

History

The award was established by the

New Zealand Women Writers' Society The New Zealand Women Writers' Society (NZWWS), originally named the New Zealand Women Writers' and Artists' Society, was founded on 11 July 1932 in Wellington. Until its dissolution in July 1991, the NZWWS supported and encouraged women writer ...

in 1959, with funding from the Bank of New Zealand. It was established in order to recognise the contributions of

Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer, essayist and journalist, widely considered one of the most influential and important authors of the modernist movement. Her works are celebra ...

to New Zealand literature. Mansfield's father

Harold Beauchamp Sir Harold Beauchamp (15 November 1858 – 5 October 1938) was a New Zealand businessman and later two times chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. He is remembered as the father of author Katherine Mansfield. Australian by birth he was brought ...

had been a member of the board of directors of the bank from 1898 to 1935. The prizes for the first award were 50

guineas The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from t ...

for the best short story and 50 guineas for the best essay. The first award, judged by Joan Stevens, was shared by

Maurice Duggan Maurice Noel Duggan (25 November 1922 - 11 December 1974) was a New Zealand writer of short fiction. Life Overview Born in Auckland and raised on the city’s North Shore, Duggan was mentored by Frank Sargeson and was friendly with many of the im ...

(short story) and

Elsie Locke Elsie Violet Locke (née Farrelly; 17 August 1912 – 8 April 2001) was a New Zealand communist writer, historian, and leading activist in the feminism and peace movements. Also available to subscribers at Oxford Reference Online'. Probably bes ...

(essay). Special awards of 15 guineas each were also presented to the runners-up O. E. Middleton for a short story and

Arapera Blank Arapera Hineira Blank (; 7 June 1932 – 30 July 2002) was a New Zealand poet, short-story writer and teacher. She wrote in both Māori language, te reo Māori and English, and was one of the first Māori writers to be published in English. Her ...

for an article respectively. In 1961, on the second occasion of the award, C.K. Stead won both the short story and essay categories. In 1963 the essay section was removed and in 1967 a new category was added, of the Young Writers Award for writers under the age of 25. Changes were also made to provide that work would only be eligible for the award if it had not previously been published. At the awards ceremony in 1963, New Zealand's Governor-General

Bernard Fergusson Brigadier Bernard Edward Fergusson, Baron Ballantrae, (6 May 1911 – 28 November 1980) was a British Army officer and military historian. He became the last British-born Governor-General of New Zealand. Early life and family Fergusson was the ...

caused some controversy by commenting that it was "shocking" that "123 years after the Treaty of Waitangi there is not one Maori in the room". He called it a "sad comment" on the literary circles represented by the audience. His comments were sparked by an earlier speech by the competition's judge which had noted the number of stories concerning conflict between Māori and

Pākehā Pākehā (or Pakeha; ; ) is a Māori term for New Zealanders primarily of European descent. Pākehā is not a legal concept and has no definition under New Zealand law. The term can apply to fair-skinned persons, or to any non-Māori New Ze ...

(New Zealand Europeans). In 1969 Alice Glenday was the first woman to win the short story award. In 1971 word count restrictions were introduced, and in 1981 a second-place award was introduced as well as an award for novice writers of any age (with the Young Writers Award now being for secondary school students). In 1993 a non-fiction essay award was introduced to mark the centenary of

women's suffrage in New Zealand Women's suffrage in New Zealand was an important political issue in the late nineteenth century. In early colonial New Zealand, as in European societies, women were excluded from any involvement in politics. Public opinion began to change i ...

. In 1999 a collection of all 20 stories that had received the main award over the previous 40 years was published, titled ''"Oh, to be a Writer, a Real Writer!": Winners of the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, 1959–1999'', and edited by Jane Tolerton and Joy Tonks. An introduction was written by Vincent O'Sullivan, himself a former recipient of the award. In 2001, competition entrants were able to submit their entries online for the first time. At that time there were four categories: the Katherine Mansfield Award ($5,000), the Novice Writers Award ($1,500), the Young Writers Award ($1,000), and the Essay Award ($1,000). In 2004 the prize money for the top award was doubled to $10,000, and the Young Writers Award recipients received $1,500 as well as $1,500 for their school. From 2005 onwards the awards took place annually rather than once every two years. In 2010 the competition was renamed the BNZ Literary Awards. In 2011 a new $500 award was introduced for a "Short Short Story", of no more than 150 words submitted via

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, and in 2014 a new $1,000 award was introduced for a short story submitted via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

in a single tweet. The awards were disestablished in 2015. Since 2016 the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace Society has presented the annual Mansfield Short Story Award for year 12 and 13 high school students in Wellington.

Notable winners

Notable winners include: *

(1959, short story section) *

(1959, essay section) * C.K. Stead (1961, both sections) *

Maurice Shadbolt Maurice Francis Richard Shadbolt (4 June 1932 – 10 October 2004) was a New Zealand writerRobinson and Wattie 1998 and occasional playwright. Biography Shadbolt was born in Auckland, and was the eldest of three children. He had a younger bro ...

(1963, 1967 and 1995) *

Frank Sargeson Frank Sargeson () (born Norris Frank Davey; 23 March 1903 – 1 March 1982) was a New Zealand short story writer and novelist. Born in Hamilton, Sargeson had a middle-class and puritanical upbringing, and initially worked as a lawyer. After ...

(1965) * Alice Glenday (1969) *

Rowan Metcalfe Rowan Metcalfe (1955–2003), also known as Rowan Pahutini, was a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer, poet, editor and journalist. She won the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award for a short story in 1997, having won the Young Writers awar ...

(young writers' award, 1974, and main award, 1997) *

Keri Hulme Keri Ann Ruhi Hulme (9 March 194727 December 2021) was a New Zealand novelist, poet and short-story writer. She also wrote under the pen name Kai Tainui. Her novel ''The Bone People'' won the Booker Prize in 1985; she was the first New Zealande ...

(1975) * Vincent O'Sullivan (1979) *

Daphne de Jong Daphne de Jong is an aerospace engineer and a trained commercial pilot. In 2018, she was listed as Forbes 30 under 30 in consumer technology. She worked on the first Amazon Prime Air customer delivery in the United Kingdom. She is a board direct ...

(1981) * Alistair Paterson (1993) *

Kate de Goldi Kate De Goldi (born 1959) is a New Zealand novelist, children's writer and short story writer. Her early work was published under the pseudonym Kate Flannery. Early life De Goldi was born in Christchurch in 1959. She is of mixed Irish and Italia ...

(1999) *

Tracey Slaughter Tracey Slaughter (born 1972) is a New Zealand writer and poet. Life Slaughter was born in Papatoetoe, South Auckland, and lived there until she was 10 years old, when her family moved to the Coromandel Peninsula. She studied at the Universit ...

(novice section, 2001, and main award, 2004) *

Charlotte Grimshaw Charlotte Grimshaw (born December 1966) is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer, columnist and former lawyer. Since the publication of her debut novel ''Provocation'' (1999), she has received a number of significant literary awards incl ...

(2006) *

Carl Nixon Carl Nixon (born 1967) is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer and playwright. He has written four novels and a number of original plays which have been performed throughout New Zealand, as well as adapting both Lloyd Jones' novel ''The ...

(2007) *

Craig Cliff Craig Cliff (born 1983) is a New Zealand short story writer and novelist. Background Craig Cliff was born in Palmerston North in 1983. He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with an MA in Creative Writing. Career In 2007, Cliff w ...

(novice section, 2007) * Catherine Chidgey (2013)

References

Bibliography

* {{cite book, editor-last1=Tolerton, editor-first1=Jane, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eq2js30MuqUC, title="Oh, to be a Writer, a Real Writer!": Winners of the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, 1959–1999, editor-last2=Tonks, editor-first2=Joy, date=1999, publisher=Victoria University Press, isbn=9780864733733, location=Wellington , ref={{harvid, Tolerton & Tonks, 1999 New Zealand literary awards 1959 establishments in New Zealand 2015 disestablishments in New Zealand Short story awards

History

Notable winners

See also

References

Bibliography