First

Gilbert Ostini, Four hauntings from the colonies 

Second

Lorraine Carmody, Picking Up Sticks

Third

Elizabeth Kelsey, Séance 

Highly Commended

Madeline McGovern, The summer house

Commended

Alex Reece Abbott, We start and end with family

Annabel Wilson, rare / yeah, rare 

 

Thank you to  The Katherine Mansfield House for hosting our awards event! 

These winning stories can be found here, published 13 October. The longlisted stories will be published between now and the end of the month. 

Congratulations, all! 

 

Four hauntings from the colonies – Gilbert Ostini

Picking Up Sticks – Lorraine Carmody

rare / yeah, rare – Annabel Wilson

Séance – Elizabeth Kelsey

The summer house – Madeline McGovern

We start and end with family – Alex Reece Abbott

 

Alpine Gem – Elizabeth Noel

Four hauntings from the colonies – Gilbert Ostini

Heeding Holden Caulfield – Michal Horton

Kererū – Bernard Steeds

Picking Up Sticks – Lorraine Carmody

rare / yeah, rare – Annabel Wilson

Real Australia – Mazz Scannell

Séance – Elizabeth Kelsey

The Dream – Rowan Bishop

The Forbidden Shed – Sue Kingham

The summer house – Madeleine McGovern

We start and end with family – Alex Reece Abbott

Wooden house, empty – Tōrea Scott-Fyfe

Congratulations to these writers!

Thank you to all who submitted.
This year’s competition is for works of fiction up to 1888 words – a reference to the year of Mansfield’s birth. Submissions followed the theme ‘haunted’.

Thank you to the Ōtepoti Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature for sponsoring this award!

Timetable for the 2024 competition

 

• June 1: submissions open
• July 31: submissions close
• Early September: shortlist announced
• October 13: prize-giving in Wellington

Judges

The 2024 judges are Michelle Elvy and Harry Ricketts.

Michelle Elvy is a writer, editor and creative writing teacher in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Her books include the everrumble (2019) and the other side of better (2021). Her anthology editing work includes, most recently, A Kind of Shelter: Whakaruru-taha (with Witi Ihimaera; MUP 2023), Breach of All Size: Small stories on Ulysses, love and Venice (with Marco Sonzogni; The Cuba Press 2022) and Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand (with Paula Morris and James Norcliffe; OUP 2020). Forthcoming are Te Moana Reo | The Language Ocean, edited with Vaughan Rapatahana (The Cuba Press 2024), and a dual-language collection of small stories in te reo Māori and English, edited with Kiri Piahana-Wong (MUP 2025). In 2024, she is judging the international Fish Flash Fiction Prize and the Bath Flash Fiction Award.

Born in London, Harry Ricketts moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1981. He is a poet, reviewer, editor, and retired academic. His more than 30 books include 12 collections of poems – most recently, Selected Poems (Victoria University Press, 2021); literary biographies – The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling (Chatto & Windus, 1999) and Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War (Chatto & Windus, 2010); several anthologies of New Zealand poetry; personal essays; and (co-written with Paula Green) 99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry (Vintage, 2010). His memoir, First Things, will appear from Te Herenga Waka Press in May. For the last three years, he has been a co-judge of the Radio New Zealand Short Story competition.