News & Developments

Text of Speech given by Jenny Robin Jones, chair of the CLL non fiction awards Selection Panel on 24 September 2009

It's a very nice thing to win an award. And it's not a very nice thing to get a letter beginning, ‘Thank you for entering....', and, developing the theme, ‘Although your application was unsuccessful...'
Does one want to read more? Does one want the thanks? Does one care who won or want to hear how high the standard of entries was or how marvellous the resulting book is just bound to be?
These are rhetorical questions - or least they have always been so for me. Several times I have refrained from applying for a grant or a residence out of fear that failure to secure one will knock my confidence in my project and drain away the creative impulse.
As chair of the Selection Panel for the CLL non fiction awards I feel concerned sometimes that others may be similarly affected. And yet, judging by my experience on the panel this is a misguided attitude. Being an ‘also ran' does not mean your application fails to demonstrate creative flair, control of language and the ability to organise your material, or that it is lacking in national significance. It certainly doesn't mean your project won't be published.
The standard of applications this year was so high that at least a dozen merited an award and that knowledge made the judges, having only two in their suzerainty, squirm. I have no doubt that these projects and many more of this year's entries, will go on to be published and make a useful contribution to New Zealand non fiction and bring enjoyment to many. Yes, the applicants would have benefited by an award but there is no reason for them to be discouraged simply because they got one of those letters.
Now that the application requirements have been formalised and tightened up, we are getting very little dross. Just about every one of the 69 applicants had not only conceived a good idea for a project but had fleshed out an interesting, well-organised outline of the proposed work, considered existing works in the chosen field and how their project would contribute to it and agonized over a working plan that broke the project down into months and weeks and dollars and cents.
When everything else is equal there is the question of how a project fits within the CLL pantheon. Is it similar in subject matter to one already supported by a CLL award? Will it contribute to balance across the non-fiction genres in the CLL awards portfolio? This consideration is important, not only for the sake of the awards, but also to demonstrate that CLL genuinely welcomes projects in any non fiction genre. In the first years of the awards projects in the biography genre were over-represented and were of higher quality than those in other genres. This is no longer the case though many biography projects are received each year. In general it is the biography and history projects that require the most in-depth research and travel. This year we received 23 applications for history projects, 18 for biography, 8 for reference, 6 each for social commentary and memoir, 5 for natural history and 3 for guides or 'how to'.
But analyzing purely in terms of genre has its limitations. It gives no indication of subject matter. Science, for instance, may be explored in terms of biography, natural history, reference, educational text or social commentary. Some subjects, and this does include science, continue to be under-represented. The panel is keen to achieve balance among genres and subjects if the quality is there.
National importance of topic is dear to the judges' hearts. That raised the question this year of whether national significance should as of right override international significance if New Zealand is not specifically mentioned. Perhaps, now that competition has become so tough, this question needs to be addressed more explicitly.
Finally we have to remember that what we are assessing is not a book in the hand but potential in the bush, so to speak. The sample of writing is brilliant but can it be sustained or - is this the best bit? The application is fantastic, ten out of ten for application, but what will the book be like? and will the applicant actually write it? These are the vagaries that attend the territory and sometimes one longs to assess an actual book.
The final meeting of the panel where each of the shortlisted entries is discussed has a huge effect on the outcome. It's as if by listening to one another and speaking our own thoughts a kind of audible X-factor emerges which everyone hears. Everyone suddenly knows that yes, this is a winner, and even the judge who was initially against it, and so suffered most, will be the one who speaks for us all, saying, This is it.
So, thanks to the 69 applicants whether they want to be thanked or not - and thanks to the brave members of the selection panel which this year comprised: Geoff Chapple, Dr Pare Keiha, Professor Tim Hazledine, Chris Baty and myself.
Now we come to the winning applications. The first project I want to tell you about is The Hands of the Ancestors, a book on customary Maori carving in the Twentieth Century.
Traditional Maori carving has played a vital symbolic role in Maori survival through the upheavals of the past two centuries. Its renaissance is usually credited to Apirana Ngata's Rotorua School of Maori Arts and Crafts which embraced an ideology of tradition as a response to modernity. We are overdue for a more nuanced analysis.
Too little is known about the individuals who developed and transmitted customary art and about the variety of traditional practice that flourished in the twentieth century. The writer will take two brothers, Pine and Hone Taiapa, who with the same basic training under Sir Apirana Ngata developed radically different approaches to Maori carving - and asks why.
Traditional Maori carving is often dismissed as a conservative and dead-end copying of the past, but by stepping outside the usual assumptions of modern art, the writer aims to develop a new kind of art history that is capable of treating customary Maori carving in a more penetrating way, examining it on its own terms.
The rescue of Maori carving by the few is a huge part of the Maori renaissance. It is a great New Zealand story and the resulting book promises to uncover new and exciting dimensions. The panel found the proposal knowledgeable and convincing and awards $35,000 to Damian Skinner.
The other application to emerge at the top of the pile proposes a daring re-examination of one of New Zealand's key historical figures, William Colenso. "The Hungry Heart: the Enquiring Mind" will not be a conventional biography, but an essay series that bears directly on the episodes of heartbreak, loneliness, and sometimes horror that chequered the life of this gifted renaissance man - printer, writer, botanist, explorer, ex-missionary and intellectual maverick.
Colenso was not afraid to speak out on unpopular causes. He protested the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and later the execution of Kereopa Te Rau, the man who went down in history as "the eater of Volkner's eyes" - Carl Volkner being a missionary suspected of spying for the Government, one eye being swallowed to represent 'Parliament'; the other the 'Queen and English law'. Such physical and metaphorical mutilation must have caused the settlers double outrage. Colenso's plea for clemency would have done little for his reputation. His fathering out of wedlock a son of Maori whakapapa would have added to his enemies' arsenal against him.
In Colenso's time the skirts of prejudice hung low. While their hems no longer trail the ankles, it is likely that they still conceal a good deal of mud. The selection panel hopes this biography of Colenso will bring not only a deeper appreciation of the man but also of the judgmental impulse that, from time to time, bedevils us all.
Not many writers would attempt an almost poetic portrayal of such a conflicted actor in the foundation of a country's colonial history. The panel believes this writer has the proven research and writing skills to bring to publication, by November 2011, a splendid work to mark the 200th anniversary of Colenso's birth - and therefore awards $35,000 to: Peter Wells.