Meet the winners of our writing competition

About 900 people entered the Sunday Star-Times short story competition. Warwick Rasmussen talks to the winners of the under-25, emerging Ma¯ori writer and emerging Pasifika writer categories.

It was an award-winning short story that lingered for years in the mind of its writer before the words made it to print.

Shannon Spencer (Nga¯ti Raukawa) won the Sunday StarTimes short story competition’s emerging Ma¯ ori writer category for her deeply personal, and moving piece, Tunga¯ ne.

The piece was based on her late brother, Haydn Carter, who died in 2008.

Tunga¯ ne, which translates as brother to a female, is about a sister’s relationship with her brother who is battling serious health issues.

Judge Patricia Grace described it as a story of love, calling it ‘‘emotive, evocative, yet at the same time understated’’.

To bring the story to life Spencer, from Rolleston, said she had some conversations with her dad.

‘‘He’s not a writer at all, but he said that he tried, not long after Haydn died, to write down his thoughts and feelings about everything, and hadn’t managed to do it, or hadn’t been happy with what he’d come up with.

‘‘And I guess from that idea of maybe recording it, for him, my story for him is a way of encouraging him to do the same for himself.’’

Spencer said she’d always written about things that were important and meaningful. Doing so helped her process the events and emotions of life.

‘‘It’s probably more surprising that I hadn’t already done that [written the story].’’

Seeing the competition advertised was the push she needed to get the story over the line.

‘‘I guess I always had it in my head, but I’d never done anything about putting it on paper. So, that was a nice little push in the back to get it actually done. It’s opened up a lot of conversations with my parents and all kinds of stuff as a result.’’

Spencer said she ran the story by her parents to make sure they were comfortable with it.

‘‘It is quite personal, and it is quite a family story. I needed to make sure that everybody else was ready for it to be told.’’

Winning the category provided her with the confidence to carry on with writing, as was the case for under-25 category winner, Maja Ranzinger.

Her family moved to New Zealand from Slovenia, meaning English was a second language for the Auckland University student, who studies mechanical engineering and finance.

‘‘As I was learning English, I was quite entranced by the syntax and how you can really play around with the language, and so throughout that it kind of became a good creative outlet. And I’ve always enjoyed the stories that are a little bit abstract the most.’’

Her winning entry, Papatu¯ a¯ nuku, was just that.

The story talks about the myth of creation between an artistic mother and her son and was described by judge Megan Dunn as having a point of view ‘‘that kept me curious’’.

One of Ranzinger’s biggest risks was the length of her story. While most were around 2000-3000 words, she chose to send in an entry that was a little over 600 words.

‘‘Because I’d chosen a message that was quite clear, the story around it seemed to develop quite quickly. By the time I’d finished I looked at the word count and I was quite surprised by how short it was, but I didn’t want to add length for the sake of length.

‘‘As I kept re-reading it and going through the editing process I would add or change a couple of words, but I would subtract a couple of words from somewhere else, and it just kept balancing around that 600.’’

For emerging Pasifika writer category winner Elsie Uini, the competition was the first she ever entered.

The Auckland teacher had just finished a hard day at work when she found out she had won.

‘‘When I saw the email, I had just got home from work and I was so tired. And I was deleting emails and then

I saw that one. I just sat bolt upright, and I started crying, and I screamed as I ran down and found my mum. I was like ‘oh my gosh’ and she was asking what happened.

‘‘I was just a bit speechless, which was weird for me.’’

Uini was encouraged to enter by her mum.

‘‘It was a good way to push myself with a dateline to actually finish something rather than just having a million ideas floating around.’’

Her story, No Small Thing, was about growing up in a bicultural setting and balancing and pivoting between Samoan and palagi worlds.

‘‘[The story] comes from things that I’ve faced. I’ve never been in that exact situation, but it’s definitely inspired by some thoughts and feelings I’ve had growing up in a bicultural home and having access to two different cultures and thinking, how do they pair together and how can I bring them together?

‘‘They both have such great aspects and there’s such a rich culture in both, but I found myself often questioning, where do I fit in? Because I was kind of in this grey area in the middle.’’

Uini said the win has given her confidence to keep on writing.

‘‘It’s really encouraged me, that people do want to hear

The Sunday Star-Times short story competition was sponsored by The Milford Foundation and Penguin Random House NZ. Dominic Hoey won the open category with his piece, 1986.

stories from a cultural perspective, and they want to listen to what everyday life is like for some Samoan women.’’

Success didn’t come without its problems, though.

Not overly confident that she would win, she was alarmed when she realised that her story would be published and out there for the world to read.

And then her grandparents came to mind. Her story had two swear words and her Nana and Poppa were ‘‘very anti swear words’’.

‘‘I thought no-one can tell them, but then their friend called them because she saw it in the newspaper.’’