infonews.co.nz
INDEX
BOOKS

NZ Mountain Book Competition Winners Announced

Sunday 22 May 2022, 2:22AM

By Mountain Film Festival

704 views

The Mountain Path author, Paul Pritchard
The Mountain Path author, Paul Pritchard Credit: Mountain Film Festival

WANAKA

The organisers of the 2022 NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival are thrilled to announce the winners of the annual Book Competition. The Mountain Book Competition invites literature on the world’s remote places, expedition tales and stories about people and their adventures.

Submissions were invited for two categories: Mountain and Adventure Narrative for stories and accounts about specific adventures, fiction or non-fiction; and Mountain and Adventure Heritage for guidebooks, coffee table or picture books, history books, analyses, reflections on culture, environments or ethics and advocacy. From 46 quality entries (the competition’s largest ever field), judges Allan Uren, Sarah Bennett and Marjorie Cook relished the challenge of whittling it down to just the top 10 as follows:  

Mountain and Adventure Narratives Finalists

In Search of the Woman who Sailed the World, by Danielle Clode

Across the Pass: A Collection of NZ Tramping Writing, selected by Shaun Barnett

SOLO: Backcountry Adventuring in Aotearoa New Zealand, by Hazel Phillips

The Mountain Path, by Paul Pritchard

Mountain and Adventure Heritage Finalists

Fine Line, by Martin Hill and Philippa Jones

KHUMBU: Gateway to Mount Everest Pathways to Kinship, by Peter Laurenson

Highly Commended

The Boy from Gorge River, by Chris Long

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? by Mark Sedon

Gone Bush, by Paul Kilgour

Ajax’s Stories by Corey Mosen

Shaun Barnett’s Across the Pass: A Collection of New Zealand Tramping Writing was awarded the $2,000 grand prize for Nankervis/Bamford NZ Mountain Book of the Year. Head judge Marjorie Cook described Barnett’s book as an “Intelligent, delightful, often funny selection of writing from a galaxy of Kiwi identities united in purpose: to write about the outdoors. This book bridges centuries and inclinations. Each story offers a gateway for those inclined to explore and ponder.”

KHUMBU: Gateway to Mount Everest Pathways to Kinship by Peter Laurenson was the winner of the Mountain and Adventure Heritage category. As well as the striking photography, the judges enjoyed this “interesting yarn about the observations of the efforts and characters of the author’s three sons” who over the course of several years have accompanied him to Khumbu, the Nepalese gateway to Mount Everest and home to the Sherpa people. In her judging notes, Cook commented that “I really wanted to do some of this adventure.  I almost felt I could do it too and it inspired me to dream a little.”

The winner of the Mountain and Adventure Narratives category is The Mountain Path by Paul Pritchard. Pritchard, who will speak at this year’s festival, is a cutting-edge rock climber and mountaineer hailing from the UK who suffered a life-changing injury when he was hit on the head by a TV-sized boulder and fell 25m while climbing in Tasmania. His book is a thoughtful exploration about what happened after the fall and what new heights a motivated but damaged climber can aspire to. Cook says that through his book “Paul Pritchard explores the meaning of life with grace and humour.”

The NZ Mountain Film & Book Festival will run in Wānaka from 24 to 29 June, in Queenstown June 30 to July 2, and online in NZ and Australia from June 24 to July 24. The festival’s literary events include guest speakers, author readings, book signings and book launches.  Back by popular demand, the ‘Words and Wine’ session on Sunday 26 June is sure to be a crowd favourite as it combines story telling with a glass of Maori Point wine.

Paul Pritchard will take the audience along with him on his personal journey in The Mountain Path: A Climber’s Journey Through Life and Death; Rebecca Hayter recounts her voyage on Wild Seas to Greenland, and Festival Director Mark Sedon will tell tales from a life well-lived that will answer the question: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?  Paul Kilgour shares his unique tramping career in Gone Bush, and  listeners will be asked to cast their minds back to 1775 and imagine masquerading as a man just to be the first female to circumnavigate the globe, as festival book competition judge Marjorie Cook reads from Danielle Clode’s In Search of the Woman who Sailed the World.

One of the most recognised names in New Zealand tramping literature and photography, Shaun Barnett will be at the festival to speak about his latest work, Across the Pass: A Collection of NZ Tramping Writing, and to tutor the adventure writing school. The adventure writing school aims to help budding writers and explorers undertake their own creative adventures and hone their writing skills.

Festival passes are on sale now, tickets and the full festival programme will be launched on 1 June at mountainfilm.nz