Wattie Book Award finalists

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 6

Wattie Book Award finalists

PA Wellington Three novels and seven non-fiction works have been selected as finalists for this z year’s Wattie Book Awards. Award winners will be announced on August 27. The first prize is $15,000, the second, $7OOO, and the third, $3OOO. This year’s prize-money has been increased 66 per cent. “A Destiny Apart,” the work of the Auckland historian and writer, Keith Sinclair, about New Zealand’s national identity, is one of the finalists. Another finalist is the

winner of this year’s New Zealand Book Award, “Head and Shoulders,” edited by the Aucklandbased journalist, Virginia Myers. Other finalists are “Every Kind of Weather,” edited by David Dowling; “Men in White," by Don Neely; "Nga Morehu: The Survivors,” by Judith Binney and Gillian Chaplin; “The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict,” by James Belich; “New Zealand Women Artists,” by Anne Kirker; “Season of .the Jew,” by Maurice Shadbolt; “Symmes Hole,” by lan

Wedde; and “Then Again,” by Sue McCauley. This year’s judges are a bookshop manager, Kitty Wishart, the "Listener” literary editor, Andrew Mason, and the writer, David Hill. The Book Publishers’ Association had received 68 entries with nine previous winners and two writers with more than one entry among the lineup. Entries are judged on quality of writing and illustrations (40 points), quality of editing, design and production (30 points), and impact on the community (30 points).