Nixon wins Katherine Mansfield prize

Dominion Post

THRILL: Carl Nixon and partner Rebecca Radcliffe celebrate his Katherine Mansfield short-fiction award in Wellington last night.

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Christchurch writer Carl Nixon has won the 2007 Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield short-fiction prize.

In Wellington last night, Nixon received the $10,000 prize for My Beautiful Balloon.

He is the second Canterbury writer to receive a major literary award in the past fortnight. Last week, poet and academic Jeffrey Paparoa Holman received a Copywright Licensing Ltd 2007 Writer's Award.

Nixon was runner-up for the Mansfield award in 1999. His short-story collection, Fish N Chip Shop Song, was short-listed for a 2007 Commonwealth Writer's Prize, and he won The Sunday Star-Times short story contest in 1997 and 1999.

His novel, Rocking Horse Road, was published this year after making its literary debut as a short story in The Press's Summer Fiction series in 2006.

"The Katherine Mansfield contest is New Zealand's pre-eminent short-story competition. It's a real thrill to have my name appear alongside those of past winners, many of whom are my own literary heroes," Nixon said yesterday.

Premier category judge Fiona Kidman said that despite the high standard of entries, Nixon's story emerged as a clear winner.

"I found My Beautiful Balloon beautifully crafted, with unfaltering artistic judgment. It is an accomplished and compelling piece of work," she said.

Creative writing graduate Craig Cliff won the 2007 Katherine Mansfield Award's novice category for his story, Another Language, while Wellington Year 13 student Mark Davidson received the young writer's award. A graduate of Victoria University's creative writing course, Cliff said it was "a real encouragement".

The awards, established in 1959, are New Zealand's longest-running short-story prize.

- © Fairfax NZ News