New Generation Awards for MA in Creative Writing graduates
Anna Smaill and Tusi Tamasese have both been recognised with this prestigious Award from the Arts Foundation.
Poet and author Anna Smaill (MA in Creative Writing 2001) and writer and filmmaker Tusi Tamasese (MA in Creative Writing 2007) have each been recognised with a prestigious New Generation Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. The New Generation Award recognises 'searching minds with a depth of knowledge and extraordinary ability to thinking innovatively', and is intended to support younger artists at a critical and exciting time in their development.
The recipients were announced on 28 October at the Westpac New Zealand Arts Awards 2015. Visual artist Simon Denny received a New Generation Award alongside Anna and Tusi. The recipients of the 2015 Laureate Award, Marti Friedlander Photographic Award, and Mallinson Rendel Award were also announced at the event.
Anna's first book was The Violinist in Spring (VUP, 2005), a collection of poetry named as one of the NZ Listener's Best Books of 2006. Her debut novel The Chimes (Sceptre, 2015) received rave reviews and was longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
The film script Tusi completed for the MA in 2007 won that year's David Carson-Parker Embassy Prize in Scriptwriting and the Dominion Post Award. His 2009 short film Va Tapuia/Sacred Spaces was widely screened in international festivals. Tusi's MA script subsequently became his feature film directorial debut O le Tulafale/The Orator, which premiered in competition at the 2011 Venice Film Festival and won numerous awards. Read about Tusi's experience of the MA Scriptwriting programme in his own words.
Creative Writing graduates Eleanor Catton and Eli Kent (MA), Anna Sanderson (MA and current PhD candidate) and Pip Adam (PhD ) are among the previous recipients of this prestigious award.