THE LITERARY LOTTERY
he Ockham New Zealand Book Award’s Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction is not something that easily fits into a writer’s resume, especially if you want to add that the award has, in the past, also been known as the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize, the New Zealand Post Book Award (Fiction) and the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry. Better to say that, as far as fiction awards go, this one is the biggie. It pays $56,000 and it provides the winner with the kind of recognition that most New Zealand novelists can only dream of. This year, the Medlicott or the Acorn or the Ockham will be given out on 12 May. Four titles are in the running. But what it does it take to write an award-winning work of fiction? We looked at the winners of the past two in 2012 — and who’s now a member of the New Zealand Book Awards Trust.
