A fund for BIPOC writers, Victorian earrings, kids' education: this is how our Acorn Prize finalists would spend the cash.
It's a rude question, really. What would you, esteemed New Zealand writer, do with the life-altering sum of $57,000 – if you were lucky enough to win the Jann MedlicottAcorn Prize for Fiction?
So rude. Brannavan Gnanalingam's initial response, quite reasonably, was "Oh, jeez, I don't know!"
We like to imagine that our best writers are sustained by the rosy bloom of our admiration, as expressed at writers festivals, where we hijack the microphones so we can make pointless long-winded statements instead of asking them questions.
But it is just as lovely for writers to be paid properly as for anyone else, as they too have bills and families who worry about them.
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"Using prize money towards writing a new book seems like a logical strategy," says Whanganui writer Airini Beautrais, a finalist for her short-story collection Bug Week, who thinks about finances "a lot".
Although she reckons "57k would be enough for me and my kids to live off for a while, depending how frugal we were," Beautrais would not give up her job teaching health science at UCOL (she also moonlights as a pole-dancing instructor) if she were to win the country's richest literary prize.
"Financial insecurity has been an ongoing issue for me since becoming a parent and now that I have secure employment it's a big gamble to chuck it in," she says. "I think the best thing to do if I had money would be to invest it in some kind of ethical fund and use it to pay for my kids to get an education or training without getting a massive student loan."
Catherine Chidgey, whose finalist novel Remote Sympathy is set in Nazi Germany as was her The Wish Child, which won the Acorn Prize in 2017, would put money towards her Ngāruawāhia house, as she did then.
Airini Beautrais. Photo / Supplied
"I made a healthy dent in our mortgage – I calculated that the sum covered my writing room, so that particular space is now paid off," she says. "If I were lucky enough to win this year, I would probably do the same, paying off our living room this time. That's where I watch TV, after all, and I don't care what anyone says – Married At First Sight is research."
Chidgey would also buy a memento: a pair of Victorian silver acorn earrings she spotted online.
Pip Adams won in 2018 with The New Animals, a novel skewering the fashion scene. At the time the Wellingtonian told the Herald she had expected the nomination to be "a lesson in how to be a good loser".
"For a very long time a lot of people supported me while I was writing," she says now. "I was really grateful to receive the money because it enabled me to become more self-supporting and also to repay, in a tiny part, some of the people and communities that supported me massively. As far as this year goes, I haven't thought about it. I know that sounds fake AF, but I really haven't – and this surprises me more than anyone."
Catherine Chidgey. Photo / Supplied
This time she is nominated for the experimental Nothing to See, and is "not daring to hope". "Also I think, as a writer and freelancer, I'm in the habit of keeping my head in the day and working with what is here and now. And here and now is really awesome for me – I'm so grateful and excited to be shortlisted with such an amazing group of writers. And I'm really looking forward to hanging out more with them.'
Brannavan Gnanalingam has been longlisted for the Acorn Prize before (A Briefcase, Two Pies and a Penthouse) and shortlisted (Sodden Downstream). This year's finalist Sprigs, about the repercussions of a sexual assault, is a favourite to win.
"I guess I'd put some money aside for a trip with the family, once we can travel again," says Gnanalingam, a Wellington lawyer who is part of the publishing collective Lawrence & Gibson.
"I'd also like to fund some BIPOC [black, indigenous and people of colour] writing in New Zealand, whether that's published through Lawrence & Gibson or otherwise. And I'd like to help Lawrence & Gibson and Rebel Press buy a printer."
That's not all: "I'd probably shout people a night at karaoke."
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2021 are presented on May 12, as part of the Auckland Writers Festival.
