It wasn\u2019t until he left school and went to University that Calman explored his taha M\u0101ori in full. In an interview with e-Tangata<\/a>, Calman described what it was like when he discovered he is a descendant of Te Rauparaha: \u201cHere I was in Christchurch finding out I was descended from a man who was infamous for his raids on the South Island in the 1830s. But then, when I looked into it, I discovered I also had Ng\u0101i Tahu whakapapa which came about through a peace marriage in the 1840s, between Te Rauparaha\u2019s granddaughter, Ria Te Uira, and Peneta Nohoa of Ng\u0101i Tahu.\u201d<\/p>\n Calman went on to become the author of He Pukapuka T\u0101taku i ng\u0101 Mahi a Te Rauparaha Nui \u2013 A Record of the Life of the Great Te Rauparaha (2020). He has edited over 100 books in te reo M\u0101ori and English and co-wrote and hosted the award-winning 2023 podcast Te Rauparaha: Kei Wareware<\/a>, which won an award for Best Education Podcast at the New York Festivals Radio Awards. In 2023 he was awarded an honorary doctor of arts from the University of Canterbury in recognition for his work in the fields of M\u0101ori history and publishing, and in revitalising te reo M\u0101ori.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Barbara Else MNZM (the letters are for services to literature) is an \u014ctepoti resident and author of the pithy, funny memoir, Laughing at the Dark (2023), about getting out from under the thumb of the patriarchy, which was shortlisted in the Ockhams in 2024.<\/a> In her review of the book on The Spinoff<\/a>, Michele A\u2019Court evokes the period in Else\u2019s life where she was starting her literary career: \u201cElse lives a kind of double life as a writer. Short stories, then writing courses, then writing plays for a local theatre group, a first try at a novel\u2026 This is why we love her: because she never gives up. Then the revelation when she signs up for creative writing with Fiona Kidman that she could write about women\u2019s lives. She is thrilled. But this is not something she can tell her husband who believes the topic of women is a second-rate choice. If you can point at one thing that ends this marriage, it is this. This, and also meeting the man who becomes her second husband, novelist and poet Chris Else.\u201d<\/p>\n Else is also the author of 13 novels: six of them for adults, including The Warrior Queen (1995) and Wild Latitudes (2007). Of her seven novels for children, her Tales of Fontania quartet won the Esther Glen Medal for Best Children\u2019s Novel in 2023. In nonfiction, readers might remember (or at least recognise) Else\u2019s anthology Go Girl \u2013 A Storybook of Epic NZ Women, which sold extremely well in Aotearoa in 2018 when it was released, and beyond. It was also shortlisted for the NZ Post Children\u2019s Book Awards 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n In terms of that leadership criteria, Else was instrumental in establishing the NZ Association of Manuscript Assessors; and in 2024 was President of Honour of the New Zealand Society of Authors, and organisation that advocates for writers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paek\u0101k\u0101riki resident Dinah Hawken is the author of 10 collections of poetry, four of them finalists for the New Zealand Book Awards.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her first book of poetry, It Has No Sound and is Blue (1987), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Best First Time Published Poet. Poet and critic Paula Green wrote, in her review of Hawken\u2019s collection, Sea-Light <\/a>that \u201creading her deftly crafted poems is akin to standing in an outside clearing and reconnecting with sky, earth, water, trees, birds, stones. It is personal, it can be political, and it is people rich.\u201d<\/p>\n Hawken\u2019s most recent book, Faces and Flowers: Poems for Patricia France<\/a> was released in 2024 and is a series of sonnets responding to her relation and friend, France, whose vibrant paintings were mostly created while France was in psychiatric care in Dunedin. Hawken, who has worked as a physiotherapist, social worker and counsellor, draws out the vivid nature of France\u2019s work and the women who inhabit the canvas. In her review of Faces and Flowers<\/a> in the Aotearoa NZ Review of Books, Sophie van Waardenberg says: \u201cHawken is a wholehearted, surefooted poet, a gatherer and protector of precious things that others may ignore.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2007, Hawken received the Lauris Edmond Award for Distinguished Contribution to Poetry; and her new book of poems, Peace and Quiet, is to be published in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n The three award winners will be celebrated tonight, November 6, at an invitation-only event in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. The Prime Minister of New Zealand has not attended the award ceremony since 2022 and will not be in attendance tonight \u2013 Minister Goldsmith will present the awards in his place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Introducing the three acclaimed writers about to receive another feather in their already decorated caps. After speculating over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[489,492,42,43,85221,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-121136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-comments-enabled","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-prime-ministers-literature-awards","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ross Calman with his book on the Treaty of Waitangi.<\/p>\n
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