Mystery authors stump Morrieson's Motel readers

No entrants solved the mystery of Morrieson's Motel, the short-story anthology published last year.

The anthology of 13 stories by many of New Zealand's top fiction writers was published jointly by Tandem Press and the New Zealand Society of Authors. It listed the authors separately from their stories and invited the public to win $350 of book tokens by matching them. The task proved more difficult than the editor and contributor of one story, Gordon McLauchlan, expected.

"I was confident I could have picked five of them from style if I hadn't known what I knew," he said, "but I must admit that several of the writers wrote stories that were very good but not characteristic."

Only one entrant, Auckland reader Sarah Fraser matched more than half of the writers with their stories in the competition, getting eight of the 13 right.

Morrieson's Motel has been such a success that another anthology by top writers is planned in time for Christmas this year - this time built around an annual event in a small South Island town.

The correct matching of authors with stories in Morrieson's Motel is: On Teevee, Sue McCauley; Dawson Falls, Sarah Quigley; The Killing Fields, Graeme Lay; Heartbreak Hotel, Kevin Ireland; A Bad Business, Gordon McLauchlan; Little Things, Catherine Chidgey; Family Unit, Vincent O'Sullivan; Spring with the Sumerbottoms, Owen Marshall; The Best Man, Elizabeth Smither; Spineless, Stephanie Johnson; Tact, Maurice Gee; Home Town, Barbara Anderson; How to Bring Down the Government, Tessa Duder.

The publisher has decided to award $100 of book tokens to Sarah Fraser for her entry.