So, the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are over for another year (and apparently the last time they’ll be sponsored by Montana wines, which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned because it can easily cause confusion, making people think we have something to do with a US state about which I know very little). Congrats to all the winners, and so forth...
I’m starting to think it’s healthy for there to be a bit of controversy each year, for publicity’s sake, and also as a catalyst to get everyone thinking about the value judgements inherent in book awards. Last year we had the ‘scandal’ about the judges only selected four novels for the Best Book of Fiction category, rather than the usual five. That led to much online discussion (and bitching) and some articles and even some thought about what the book awards is or should be. I also contributed my two cents to the debate.
The awards this year don’t seem to have had quite the controversy of last year, but I have noticed some discussion (and bitching) about the fact that all the finalists in both poetry categories (Best Book and Best First Book) were all from only two publishers: Auckland University Press and Victoria University Press. This is a fairly usual state of affairs.
While those two are, I think, the pre-eminent poetry publishers in New Zealand, they are far from the only poetry publishers. And while they publish fine books, they do not publish the only fine books (though, as a poet who is published by neither of those presses, and as a publisher of poetry myself, I would say that wouldn’t I). In fact some people might argue that those two publish a certain kind of poetry, and that their pre-eminence shuts down other voices.
I worry that we’ve ended up with a circular kind of thinking – it’s good because it’s published by VUP/AUP, and it can’t be good because it isn’t. I’ll be interested to see what happens in future years, whether anyone else gets a look in. As a publisher of books that I think are brilliant, I of course hope so.
If no small presses, or no other publishers, ever get shortlisted, then they’ll stop entering, viewing it as simply a way of throwing away a significant amount of money and five copies of the book. Perhaps that’s already happening – do small publishers usually enter the awards? Mine doesn’t always, and I don’t always.
Thinking further though, aren’t the book awards really just run by the institution, for the institution. Should we really expect anything else? This led me to another thought – perhaps small presses need to get together and have some kind of small press awards, which celebrates the work down by the many small publishers. Anyone want to organise it?
Showing posts with label Book awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book awards. Show all posts
19 July 2008
Happy belated poetry day!
So yesterday was Montana (the NZ wine brand rather than the US state) Poetry Day. Unfortunately, I failed to do very much poetry-related, except continue to agonise over whether to take a poem out of My Iron Spine or not (still agonising), but I did publish this blog post about poetry on Te Ara.
Itwas also the day they announced the winner of the poetry section of the Montana Book Awards, which was Janet Charman for Cold Snack. I haven’t yet read Cold Snack, but I’ve generally enjoyed Charman’s work. The other finalists were Johanna Aitchison for A Long Girl Ago and Fiona Farrell for The Pop-up Book of Invasions.
Itwas also the day they announced the winner of the poetry section of the Montana Book Awards, which was Janet Charman for Cold Snack. I haven’t yet read Cold Snack, but I’ve generally enjoyed Charman’s work. The other finalists were Johanna Aitchison for A Long Girl Ago and Fiona Farrell for The Pop-up Book of Invasions.
12 July 2008
Scandal in Montana and Google Analytics
So late the-week-before-last, I was surprised to discover that 101 people had looked at my blog in one day. This is quite a lot, compared to my usual daily audience of about 10-20ish (which I’m very happy with). How on earth did these extra people find me?
Turns out they were mostly coming to my post about the book awards furore, and they were mostly coming from Ron Silliman’s popular poetry blog. In a long list of various links he’d included one that said ‘The scandal in Montana’. So I’m sure many of the people who clicked it were expecting to find some kind of sex expose in the US state, and were probably very disappointed to discover that it was just some little book awards thing in New Zealand. Nevertheless, I was terribly excited to have had so many visitors.
The reason I know how many people look at my blog, and how they get there, is through Google Analytics, a handy wee thing that tracks your blog (and/or website) stats. It doesn’t tell me who my visitors are, or anything so creepy as that; but it does tell me how many visitors I've had, where they are geographically (the most specific you get is by city), how they got there (ie referring sites) and, if they got there via a search engine, what their search terms were.
I find it childishly exciting to see that I’ve had readers from cities I’ve never even heard of, it parts of the world like Japan, US, South America, the Middle East. Even if they never come back, it’s still quite exciting.
It’s also been interesting to learn what people who get to Winged Ink via search engines are looking for. I recently wrote a post on my work blog (Signposts: a blog about Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand) about some of the most amusing search terms people used to get to it. Some my particular favs were ‘4 jocks surfer fight’, ‘obscene signposts competing for love with another suitor’ and ‘hot women around foxton’. I think those searchers would have gone away empty-handed from Signposts.
People who get to Winged Ink via search engines mostly have much more sensible and understandable search terms, like ‘poetry’, ‘book awards novel’, ‘jaam’ and ‘putting together a poetry manuscript’. Some people are actually even looking for my blog: ‘winged ink’, ‘helen rickerby’.
I’ve noticed that a lot of people (North American students I think) seem to be looking for stuff to help with essays about poets I’ve written about, especially Anne Sexton and Anne Carson. For you, I plan to republish a piece I wrote about Anne Carson for the Poetry Society Newsletter. I'm, of course, quite sure you won't rip it off for your essay, and will rather use it as a jumping off point for your own thoughts.
However, there are a few oddish search terms that people have used to get to Winged Ink, which might amuse:
- china special ink for decal paper omnipotent
- digital printing on concrete
- discipline corset fainting stories
- essay on my favourite poem [how would I know what your favourite poem is?!]
- quiz to see what i am going to be when im older.
22 June 2008
Book awards fiction scandal shocker
They’re all blogging about it. It’s the controversy of the decade. Or perhaps of the year. In New Zealand. Among bookish types. Who pay attention to local literature. Ok, so maybe a storm in a teacup, but that’s still quite a storm for the folks in the teacup.
So, basically what’s happened is that the judges for this year’s Montana Book Awards have shortlisted only four books in the fiction category, rather than the usual five.
Various writers and other book people are up in arms. That’s one fewer novel or short story collection that will have one of those little gold shortlisted stickers on the cover, which means one fewer book that will sell more copies than it otherwise might. One fewer writer who will get the recognition boost and general validation that shortlisting would bring.
But the fuss really got going when one of the judges said ‘While there were other great books [nominated], we did not want to dilute the Montana sticker by promoting a fifth.’ As you might expect, that rather p’d a whole bunch of people off.
You can read more about it in Paula Morris’s really interesting article in the Listener, and also on her blog; on Beattie’s Book Blog, where he describes the furore as a ‘major blunder, and a PR disaster’ (it’s also worth reading the comments, where various literatti-about-town have a bit of an argue). Over on McGovern Online, Paul Reynolds isn’t so opinionated about this particular controversy, but he’s spitting that Hamish Keith’s book-of-the-TV-series Big Picture was shortlisted in the non-fiction category.
I’ve been having a bit of a think about all of this over the last few days, and while I can understand why people are upset, I also think we should should leave the judging to the judges. Actually, that isn’t what I think at all – I think we should all keep judging to our heart’s content, but I accept that these judges have been selected to decide what they think should win this year.
But anyway, it also got me thinking about book awards, why we have them, what we want from them, and what they actually do. So I’m going to have a bit of a go at unpicking some of this, but don’t expect anything too incisive because it is, after all, Sunday morning.
I think what we want from awards is some kind of omnipotent and definitive judgement of what is the best book of the year. And we want to reward that book, and it’s writer, with attention, admiration and increased sales.
Many problems with that obviously – including the lack of omnipotent force to judge the awards, and the lack of a definitive standard – what the best book is will being very much down to taste. I assume the judges are selected because they are seen to be people with knowledge about books and local literature. Being human, they will come along with their own tastes, preconceptions and biases, which will inevitably affect their decisions. They will try and be fair and pick and reward the books they collectively consider the best books of the year, of a certain ‘literary’ sort. We hope that the judges’ tastes will mirror our own, but it will be a fluke if it does.
(There's no room for general or genre fiction really, and I was kind of astounded that Paula Morris knew/thought 'there was no chance of Trendy But Casual getting on the shortlist ... It’s a comedy set in New York, which involved the three Rs – romance, reality TV, and Rapstallion, a rap star with a pink-maned horse, who appears in a hip-hopera called “Mary Rappins.” It’s hardly a novel that screams NEW ZEALAND’S PREMIERE LITERARY AWARD.' Surely subject matter shouldn't prevent it being considered, but she's probably right.)
If we’re a writer, we’d hope (most likely) that the judges will pick our book, because it will validate us and our work, make us feel appreciated, make our work known to a wider range of readers, and will hopefully prove once and for all to our families that we are useful members of society (should clarify that I don’t think my family needs such proof).
Publishers (and, let’s admit it, writers) hope that our authors will be picked because it will make the book sell better. Also it will make people think we’re a good publisher for being smart enough to back such a writer.
Readers sometimes look to awards as a guide of what they should read, what’s good. This made me wonder whether many ‘classic’ novels (I guess I mean ones which have stood the test of time and are generally considered great) won any awards. I know some books I consider important, such as Lolita and Ulysses, had quite a lot of trouble actually getting published in the first place, so I’d be surprised if they got awards at the time.
But I guess the thing I like about awards is that they put a little spotlight, for a little while, on literature. And to be honest I think this controversy is good, because it’s doing that too – making people a little bit aware of local writing.
So, basically what’s happened is that the judges for this year’s Montana Book Awards have shortlisted only four books in the fiction category, rather than the usual five.
Various writers and other book people are up in arms. That’s one fewer novel or short story collection that will have one of those little gold shortlisted stickers on the cover, which means one fewer book that will sell more copies than it otherwise might. One fewer writer who will get the recognition boost and general validation that shortlisting would bring.
But the fuss really got going when one of the judges said ‘While there were other great books [nominated], we did not want to dilute the Montana sticker by promoting a fifth.’ As you might expect, that rather p’d a whole bunch of people off.
You can read more about it in Paula Morris’s really interesting article in the Listener, and also on her blog; on Beattie’s Book Blog, where he describes the furore as a ‘major blunder, and a PR disaster’ (it’s also worth reading the comments, where various literatti-about-town have a bit of an argue). Over on McGovern Online, Paul Reynolds isn’t so opinionated about this particular controversy, but he’s spitting that Hamish Keith’s book-of-the-TV-series Big Picture was shortlisted in the non-fiction category.
I’ve been having a bit of a think about all of this over the last few days, and while I can understand why people are upset, I also think we should should leave the judging to the judges. Actually, that isn’t what I think at all – I think we should all keep judging to our heart’s content, but I accept that these judges have been selected to decide what they think should win this year.
But anyway, it also got me thinking about book awards, why we have them, what we want from them, and what they actually do. So I’m going to have a bit of a go at unpicking some of this, but don’t expect anything too incisive because it is, after all, Sunday morning.
I think what we want from awards is some kind of omnipotent and definitive judgement of what is the best book of the year. And we want to reward that book, and it’s writer, with attention, admiration and increased sales.
Many problems with that obviously – including the lack of omnipotent force to judge the awards, and the lack of a definitive standard – what the best book is will being very much down to taste. I assume the judges are selected because they are seen to be people with knowledge about books and local literature. Being human, they will come along with their own tastes, preconceptions and biases, which will inevitably affect their decisions. They will try and be fair and pick and reward the books they collectively consider the best books of the year, of a certain ‘literary’ sort. We hope that the judges’ tastes will mirror our own, but it will be a fluke if it does.
(There's no room for general or genre fiction really, and I was kind of astounded that Paula Morris knew/thought 'there was no chance of Trendy But Casual getting on the shortlist ... It’s a comedy set in New York, which involved the three Rs – romance, reality TV, and Rapstallion, a rap star with a pink-maned horse, who appears in a hip-hopera called “Mary Rappins.” It’s hardly a novel that screams NEW ZEALAND’S PREMIERE LITERARY AWARD.' Surely subject matter shouldn't prevent it being considered, but she's probably right.)
If we’re a writer, we’d hope (most likely) that the judges will pick our book, because it will validate us and our work, make us feel appreciated, make our work known to a wider range of readers, and will hopefully prove once and for all to our families that we are useful members of society (should clarify that I don’t think my family needs such proof).
Publishers (and, let’s admit it, writers) hope that our authors will be picked because it will make the book sell better. Also it will make people think we’re a good publisher for being smart enough to back such a writer.
Readers sometimes look to awards as a guide of what they should read, what’s good. This made me wonder whether many ‘classic’ novels (I guess I mean ones which have stood the test of time and are generally considered great) won any awards. I know some books I consider important, such as Lolita and Ulysses, had quite a lot of trouble actually getting published in the first place, so I’d be surprised if they got awards at the time.
But I guess the thing I like about awards is that they put a little spotlight, for a little while, on literature. And to be honest I think this controversy is good, because it’s doing that too – making people a little bit aware of local writing.
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