I have vivid memories of judging the novice section of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Short Story competition in 2013, from refusing the offer of a pre-reader to the boxes and boxes of physical stories arriving at my house, reading them all, picking a winner and recording my video for the awards event as I was in Iowa by that time (sweating an ungodly amount in the four seasons conservatory because anywhere else and I'd wake up my 7 month old daughter), and then the quibbles about whether the winner was actually a novice as she'd had a lot of non-fiction (columns and journalism) published previously.
And then today I was looking for any new reviews of Offshore Service (hold that thought), and a picture of me I couldn't remember seeing caught my eye (->). It was from a Stuff article in 2019 calling for entries into the annual Sunday Star Times short story competition, for which I was the judge of the open category.
And I was like: Was I?
I went back and checked my writing CV - which I only update periodically - and it doesn't mention the SST gig in 2019, but includes judging duties before and after.
I searched online some more and went back through my emails. And I can confirm that yes, I did judge this comp in 2019.
Part of the memory hole was due to the fact I wisely took up the offer of having pre-readers select a short list, so I received around 20 stories and then six days later I advised an SST editor of the winner and two runners up, with little commendations for each and an overall comment.
As an aside, I think my overall comment, which wasn't published as far as I can tell online, is still solid advice:
"The entries this year displayed a high level of technical competence. We have a lot of writers who know their way around a sentence and can create and sustain an engaging tone for the duration of a story. The next thing is what will you do with this skill? Where will you take your reader? The short story form does push the writer to extremes, particularly towards the darker side of life. Death, poverty, despair. This year there were very few writers who fought against this undertow. It’s a fine line between being deep and being maudlin. Humour, irony, joy – these things will take you far in life and elevate your stories, too. Your readers will thank you for it!"
But yes, I was essentially a judge for six days, which pales in comparison to the weeks and months of involvement for things like the BNZ Katherine Mansfield or the Ockham NZ Book Awards.
The other factor is: I was cracking up back then (late 2019). The whole reason I got asked to be the judge was Penguin Random House was the sponsor of the prize and I'd had a new book released by Penguin Random House that August, so it was a way to raise my profile (psst, guys, that shit never works).
But, as I've written about in the Q&A on my website, I started having panic attacks just after the book was launched. So even if I was fully compos mentis at the time of my judging, the temporary disintegration probably took some of the memories either side of the collapse with it.
I don't recall ever encountering any entrants in the 2019 prize in real life, and hope I've never blanked on one of the people whose stories I liked... I see that Susannah Eliffe, whose story I chose as a runner up, has a book of stories called Patron Saints of Roadkill published this year. How awesome. I must seek it out.
***
Anyway, there was a new review of Offshore Service today. This one is by Siobhan Harvey, published by Kete Books. It says nice things like, "In all Offshore Service is tender, visceral, poignant and penetrating. Not only for its authentic, sensitive and emotional portrayal of contemporary man, but also for the significant things it tells us about modern life." It talks about writing the New Zealand pākehā male, Frank Sargeson and intertextuality, but I especially like that it acknowledges there are feminine perspectives too, and communal ones.
What's neat, but also funny, is Siobhan wrote a review of A Man Melting back in 2010 (this time for The Listener), which also mentioned Frank Sargeson and intertextuality (I can recall most of my initial reviews clearly, LOL).
And... Siobhan has a new memoir out this year called, What We Remember, What We Forget.
This is all to say even someone as self-absorbed as me can't keep a handle on their own biography.
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Speaking of one's own biography... In going back through my emails, I was also reminded that my story, 'Connective Tissue', which is told in the form of an author's biographical notes as his career sputters out, was highly commended in the 2018 SST competition, and the SST asked to publish it in the paper and I asked them not to (despite the Ts & Cs saying they could) as I wouldn't get paid and I'd rather place the story elsewhere... They graciously honoured my request.
In the end (with some improvements, bien entendu), the story was published in Landfall Tauraka 249, which opened the door to my second collection being released by OUP as part of the Landfall Tauraka Short Story Series... So, yeah, it worked out in the end.
Recording this all here now for the next time I forget.
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