Creative Writing

2010 Te Papa Tupu writers competition winner - Jacqui McRae

Congratulations to creative writing student Jacqui McRae who is one of the six winners of the 2010 Te Papa Tupu writers competition, judged by Patricia Grace and editor Daisy Coles.  As a prize, Jacqui receives a living allowance for six months and will have the opportunity to work full-time on her manuscript with a mentor.

Jacqui says:  ‘Thank you Sue. I am very excited and feel honoured to be on the programme. I can't wait to send you a copy of the book as you of all people have evidence of how far someone can progress.’

2010 Kingi McKinnon scholarship winner - Ali McGraw

I wrote my first poem when I was five; Mum typed it out for me and I still have it. I wrote plays and stories until some kind of growing self-consciousness brought that creativity to an end. Fortunately my seventh form English teacher, Bill Griffiths, inspired in me a love of literature and I began to understand the magic of words.

All I wanted to do was write, but I didn’t, I chickened out. I went on to university and studied subjects more likely to earn me a living wage. I still found excuses to write bits of non-fiction in the course of my work; this may have been a source of frustration to those who were paying me to work with spreadsheets or to sell telecommunications management software.

In my heart I always considered myself a writer so I deliberately lived a life full of challenge and adventure, convinced that this was giving me experience to draw on; it was years before I realised I wasn’t really a writer till I actually wrote something. So I dug out some old handwritten notes and stayed up all night trying to turn them into a poem and a couple of stories. Within two weeks I heard about the Kingi McKinnon Scholarship for Emerging Writers, took a deep breath and applied for it.

Winning the Kingi McKinnon Scholarship has fulfilled my immediate writing goals, which were to find the courage to send some of my work out into the world, and to become part of a writing community. Now I’d like to develop depth, maturity and focus in my writing, and become proficient in a couple of genres. My longer-term goal is to hold in my hand a book that I’ve written, or at least contributed to.

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