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Welcome to the Literary Bulletin
Our thoughts are with all our members whose lives may have been disrupted by the earthquakes, especially Canterbury, Top of the South and Wellington branch members.
This weeks Bulletin has an important notice about PLR payment this year, published writers please take the time to read it.
Best wishes for the weekend
All the best from National Office
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PLR - IMPORTANT NOTICE
If you registered titles with the National Library for the Public Lending Right scheme (PLR), on or around the 28th October you will have received an email with the survey results for the titles you have registered. The list shows your books broken down into ‘versions’, as they have stopped counting all versions of a title as one item. PLR staff have explained what they mean by versions as follows:
What’s a version?
“Version” is not strictly synonymous with “edition” as, for example, paperback and hardback editions with the same publication details (place of publication, publisher and date of publication) are treated as the same version. Essentially a version differs from another in that the intellectual content is different or the publication details are different.
So if, for example, the publisher changed but the text remained the same, that would now be considered a different version, with these two ‘versions’ of the title counted as two separate titles. This change makes it much harder for a title with more than one version to reach a threshold of 50 copies held at Libraries which makes it eligible for PLR payment, even though the cumulative total is well over the 50 copy threshold.
This change to the administration system is of concern to many authors and to the NZ Society of Authors as it disadvantages many authors. The change was made with no consultation, and no modelling to see what the impact would be for titles with many versions.
In your email from PLR you are invited to write in by 5pm 30 November if you believe that an error has been made in determining the number of copies of your book(s). They require you to state your reasons for believing that there has been an error.
According to PLR Regulations your book should be counted as a single book, no matter the number of versions, unless it is published in more than one volume because each volume contains a different component, then each volume is counted as a separate book (regulation 9.5).
We wrote to PLR about this on 3 November and again this week, and have not heard back. National Library is evacuated due to earthquake damage but President Kyle Mewburn managed to speak to someone today who advised the issue will be given priority on their return to the building either today or Monday. As long as writers and illustrators have lodged a challenge to the count by 5pm 30 November they will be included in the process going forward.
Individual protests are important as they reinforce the stance NZSA is making: Regulations to PLR should not change without prior consultation with the PLR Advisory Group who in turn consult with us. This did not happen.
PLR contact info: Bill Macnaught, Chief Librarian, National Library of New Zealand, PO Box 1467. Wellington 6140. public-lending-right@dia.govt.nz
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Laurence Fearnley wins Janet Frame Memorial Award 2016
We are delighted to announce Laurence Fearnley as the recipient of the Janet Frame Memorial Award 2016.
The NZ Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award of $3,000 is awarded to an author of literary or imaginative fiction or poetry with the purpose of supporting a mid-career or established writer in furthering their literary career.
Laurence Fearnley is a novelist and non-fiction writer who lives in Dunedin, a UNESCO Creative City of Literature. She plans to use the award developing her current project - writing a series of short pieces structured in such a way that each story responds to the traditional development and dry-down of perfume. That is, the volume will open with ‘top notes’, develop through the ‘heart notes’ and end with ‘base notes’. More
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Farewell to Sir James McNeish
We are very saddened to hear James McNeish has died. He was an honoured and active member of the NZ Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc). Here are links to the NZ Herald obituary and Scoop coverage.
PEN Gazette records James as a new member September 1970; the President of the Society at the time was Neva Clarke and the editor of the Gazette was Marilyn Duckworth - we've attached the full copy of that Gazette below for you to read.
In the following issue, November 1970, there is a brief review of McKenzie: "James McNeish's novel McKenzie will appear in bookshops this month. He reports an interesting reaction in London so far. Dr John Reid describes the book as trying 'a new ambitious way with our history'. He says 'McKenzie is rich, spacious, complex and at times almost Blakean in its perceptions, yet rooted deep in actualities of a place and time'."
Our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.
Gazette September 1970
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2016 Laureate Award Recipients
NZSA congratulates Laureate recipients and NZSA members Dylan Horrocks and Eleanor Catton! Each Laureate Award includes a cash award of $50,000. The full list of this year's winners are:
Dylan Horrocks – Cartoonist/Graphic Novelist/Writer; Eleanor Catton – Writer; Peter Robinson – Visual Artist; Taika Waititi – Film Maker; Lyell Cresswell – Composer
The Laureate Award is an investment in excellence across a range of art forms for an artist with prominence and outstanding potential for future growth. Their work is rich but their richest work still lies ahead of them. The award should recognise a moment in the artist’s career that will allow them to have their next great success. More
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2016 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow announced
Poet/writer Kate Camp is the 2016 recipient of this fellowship.
For the past forty-six years, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship has enabled a selected New Zealand writer to live for up to six months in Menton, France. There, they have access to the writing room in Villa Isola Bella where one of New Zealand's most famous writers, Katherine Mansfield, once lived. More
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Want to Stick to Your Writing Goals in 2017?
In Auckland? Let's raise a glass to farewell 2016 + get inspired about your writing in 2017.
"Get Inspired" is a fun mini-workshop event designed to help writers and aspiring writers decide what they want to write in 2017, get passionate about that project and identify ways to stay on track through the year.
Tutor: Kathryn Burnett
Read more here Booking Link: Get Inspired! Your Writing in 2017
Queries: Kathryn@kathryn-burnett.com
Kathryn Burnett - Writer/Teacher/Creativity Coach W: www.kathryn-burnett.com
Paid Advertising
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Advance notice of entries for 2017 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults
The New Zealand Book Awards Trust advises that entries in the 2017 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults will open on 28 November 2016.
As with the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, entry will be online only. For more information, please contact Joy Sellen childrensawards@nzbookawards.org.nz
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Tauranga Writers Inc - call out to past menmbers
This group was established on 21st June 1967 when Edna Pithie and Verna Dowrick  instigated the first meeting of what was then the Tauranga Writers Group. This group continued to meet over the years and has grown into a mature and independent body that continues to embrace writing as a craft that can bring pleasure and profit to the committed.
So next year – 2017 – is our 50th anniversary, our Golden Jubilee, and we are eager to hear from anyone who at any time was once a member of Tauranga Writers. If you were a past member, please get in touch with us now. We need your input. More
Jenny Argante, President, Tauranga Writers Inc. taurangawritersnz@gmail.com Ph: 022 053 48 68 www.taurangawriters.org.nz
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PEN NZ
Courage Day
It was heartening to see so many successful Courage Day campaigns around the country. Thank you to all the branches who held events. The NZ Author will publish some pictures from this years Branch Activities. If you haven't sent them in yet please get them to editor Rae McGregor by Monday. We are always interested to see new ideas and ways of observing this important day.
Standing Orders Review: Have Your Say
The Standing Orders for Parliament are currently under review. The public is invited to submit to a committee on changes it would like made. Public submissions are now being invited on the Review of Standing Orders 2017. The closing date for submission is 25th November. More details about Standing Orders can be found on the New Zealand Parliament website. PEN NZ is making submissions on the select committee and petition process. If you want to have your say then get your submissions in by 25th November.
For more information, please contact PEN (NZ) spokesperson Dana Wensley at PEN@nzauthors.org.nz.
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PEN International
Persecuted Writers: Christmas List
It’s now time to turn our attention to Christmas. New Zealand PEN is glad to report that the SEASONS GREETINGS CARD ADDRESS LIST for persecuted writers or their families has been updated. These messages mean a lot to writers in prison. One writer who PEN NZ has signalled out this year for our attention is Behrouz BOOCHANI. He is an Iranian journalist and human rights advocate who was rescued at sea when trying to reach Australia for asylum and sent to a processing centre on Manus Island. He is the subject of a recent PEN Rapid Action network request. You can hear more about him on the Top Writers 18th June podcast where PEN (NZ) Freedom of Speech spokesperson Dana Wensley talks about Boochani, and the valuable role he plays in continuing to report what is going on in the Pacific region from behind bars. Listen to the podcast here.
What you can do:
- Take Action now on behalf of Behrouz BOOCHANI
- Send a Christmas card now.
Email PEN spokesperson Dana Wensley at PEN@nzauthors.org.nz or Writers In Prison co-ordinator Lesley Marshall for full mailing details for Boochani and others on our list.
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Clippings from the internet
'Post-truth' named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries
In the era of Donald Trump and Brexit, Oxford Dictionaries has declared “post-truth” to be its international word of the year.
Defined by the dictionary as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to last year. The spike in usage, it said, is “in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States”. More (extract from article by Alison Flood in the Guardian)
How Franz Kafka was inspired by those thoughts/dreams you get just before you fall asleep
I don’t know if it’s because we’re embarrassed or because we simply don’t know how to explain it, but the feeling that you’re about to fall asleep isn’t so much marked by a sense of ‘drifting’ as it is an abstract thought process. Lying there, you’ll suddenly become aware of a bizarre cognition you have had, a sort-of pre-sleep dream. More (extract from article by Christopher Hooton in the Independent)
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Digital Files
Newspaper publishers face very different and much more immediate threats than book publishers
The business news has been very painful for newspapers lately. A piece we saw a couple of days ago says both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are going to cut back sharply on their arts coverage. The advertising simply isn’t there to support it.
And recently before that, we read a piece suggesting that perhaps newspapers should have just ignored the whole digital thing (a frighteningly obtuse suggestion) and then right afterwards a Times story documenting the collapse of advertising dollars available for print which pretty much obviates the “just skip digital” idea. More (extract from the Shatzkin Files)
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Death by Deadline
November
28 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults entries open More
30 Flash Frontier: An Adventure in Short Fiction - no theme. More
30 Fish Short Story Contest 2016 More
December
1 Peter Porter Poetry Prize. More
7 Casa Ana Writers' Retreat More
10 Celtic Mythology Short Story Competition. More
14 Aotearoa Short Film Lab More
20 Wallace Foundation Short Fiction Contest 2017. More
31 Magic Oxygen short story and poetry competition More
January
2 M Literary Residency 2017-18. More
30 Kokako twice-yearly magazine of haiku, senryu, tanka, renga and related forms. Email
31 Fish Short Memoir Contest More
February
28 Poems in the Waiting Room competition More
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Opportunities
The Calendar of Opportunities is found on our website.
- Opportunities are displayed in calendar or list form (together with events).
- Opportunities are only visible to members! To see opportunities on the website you need to log in using your email address and website password.
- To find opportunities in your area, visit your branch page.
- Beware! The listing appears on the deadline date.
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Events / Book Launches / Workshops
Events are found on our website
- You can see Events in calendar or list form (together with opportunities).
- To find all events and book launches go here.
- To find events in your area, visit your branch page.
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Anne de Lautour to retire from PANZ
Anne took on the director’s role at PANZ back in 2007 and quickly made it and the association her own. She had a huge hand in transforming PANZ into the organisation that it is today. PANZ is currently advertising for a new director. Read more in the PANZ newsletter here.
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Bestsellers from Nielsen BookScan
Bestsellers from Nielsen BookScan
Latest Nielsen Bestseller reports: Bestsellers Chart - fiction, non fiction, adults, children & Independent Booksellers Top 20
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Writers on Radio and TV
Click here for the lineup for upcoming Books on Radio New Zealand National.
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