Montana award for Waikato writer

A "beautifully-produced" book by a Waikato writer and academic took out the lifestyle and contemporary culture category of the Montana books awards in Wellington last night.

The three judges of the country's top book awards and adviser Ann Packer said they were instantly drawn to Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo, written by Waikato University Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku. "It is a beautifully-produced, authoritative book on a subject that has been documented before, but never in this depth," Ms Packer said. "The writing is impeccable and well edited."

Speaking before she left for Samoa on Friday, Dr Te Awekotuku said she did not want to get too excited about the prospect of winning the award. "Just to have come this far is extraordinary enough," she said referring to the book's nomination as a finalist.

The book brings together an array of sources on every aspect of the centuries-old art form, from the earliest to the most contemporary moteatea (chants), tribal histories, pakeha settler documents, oral histories and photographs of practitioners and weavers.

The book was co-authored by Linda Waimarie Nikora, director of the university's Maori and Psychology Research Unit, and student researchers Mohi Rua and Rolinda Karapu.

As the main writer, Dr Te Awekotuku said the biggest personal challenge was transforming a massive amount of "quite remarkable material" into a book.

Photographer Becky Nunes' work was "elegant and sublime" and Dr Te Awekotuku thanked her for that.

Meanwhile, Auckland writer Charlotte Grimshaw won the Montana Medal for her book of short stories Opportunity. She scooped the $5000 fiction category and the $10,000 overall award for fiction or poetry.

Wellingtonian Mary McCallum won the NZ Society of Authors best first book award and readers' choice award for her novel about an isolated whaling community, The Blue. Janet Hunt won the Montana Medal for non-fiction and the environment category for Wetlands of New Zealand A Bitter-Sweet Story.