Sargeson Prize winners
In 2025, we received 1164 entries in the Open Division and 306 in the Secondary Schools Division; a total of 1470 stories.
Open Division winners
First Place
“None of us met our nan. She died before we were born, and since then all we’ve all been doing is fighting to figure out who the hell we are. I obsessed over Ishua’s choice not to offer me one of those precious things, and I obsessed over my own choice not to just take something.”
Becky Manawatu (Kawatiri Westport): 'The Vase'. The story will appear here following publication on ReadingRoom on 18 October 2025.
Becky Manawatu (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha) is the award-winning writer of the novels Auē and Kataraina. Auē won the 2020 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction as well as Best First Book at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. It also won the Ngaio Marsh Award the following year. Becky held the University of Otago’s Robert Burns Fellowship in 2021, where she worked on her second novel. She has written for The Spinoff, Newsroom and Pantograph Punch. She worked as a journalist for the Westport News, the smallest independent daily print paper in New Zealand. She is currently working on her third novel. She lives in Westport with her children and husband.
Photo credit: Stewart Nimmo
Second Place
“Worry about yourself,’ Lance says, lighting a cigar and dismissing global economic and political disruption in a puff of smoke. He has cultivated a ZZ Top beard of late, and I contemplate whether careless flicking of ash might ignite him.”
Maria Wickens (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): 'My Pal Mal.' The story will appear here following publication on ReadingRoom on 1 November 2025.
Maria Wickens won the 1993 Reed New Writers Fiction Award with her novel Left of Centre (Secker & Warburg 1994). Her latest novel Drown ’Em Like Puppies was longlisted in the Michael Gifkins Award 2022. Her short fiction has appeared in Allium, Apricity Magazine, Chamber Magazine, Cobalt Review, Evening Street Review, Ghostlight Literary Magazine, Mystery Tribune, The Penmen Review, Press Pause Press, Skywatcher Press: Dead Unleashed, The Depths Unleashed Anthologies, and Writers Online (Runner Up Grand Flash 2024). Born in Masterton, Maria moved to the UK for nearly fifteen years before returning to Aotearoa with her husband and two children in 2010 where they make their home in Wellington.
Third Place
“Women have leaky boundaries, the Australian voice said. We’re leaking energy, we’re leaking power. We’re here to show you how to hold a clean boundary.”
Kate Duignan (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): ‘Orange Warning'. The story will appear here following publication on ReadingRoom on 8 November 2025.
Kate Duignan has published two novels. Her second, The New Ships, was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in 2019. She has published short fiction and poetry in various journals and anthologies, and has a recent essay in Landfall Strong Words 4. Kate holds the Sargeson Fellowship for 2025, and is working on a new novel set in Canada and New Zealand. In other years, Kate teaches fiction at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University. She lives with her partner and three children in a windy part of Pōneke, overlooking Te Whanganui-a-Tara.
Photo credit: Ebony Lamb
Highly Commended
- Octavia Cade (Ōtepoti Dunedin): ‘Goodbye Freddy’
- Leah Dodd (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): ‘Pond Scum’
- Robert Jenkins (Whakatū Nelson): 'Callooh‘
- Jessica Howland Kany (Wānaka): ‘Puzzling World’
- Sam Keenan (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): ‘Freedom Voices’
- Harriet Salmon (Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland): ‘The Singing Butcher’
Secondary Schools Division winners
First Place
“Looking back, I would imagine the house sighed, a long, tired exhale, when the boxes were pulled out of hiding. As if it recognised the ritual and felt our whakapapa loosening from its bones, a farewell beginning before any goodbye was spoken.”
Brooke Smith (Waiuku College): ‘Piece of the Furniture'. The story will appear here following publication on ReadingRoom on 25 October 2025.
Brooke Smith is a Year 13 student at Waiuku College and will be starting a degree in midwifery next year. She has always loved writing, especially essays where she can pull apart and analyse films, but creative writing has become a way for her to explore other ideas and experiences. Having moved around a lot across different parts of New Zealand, Brooke has often found herself navigating new places and people, and those changes have shaped the way she thinks about belonging and identity. Her story ‘Piece of the Furniture’ was based on some of those experiences, while also incorporating her Māori culture, which continues to influence her perspective. Writing gives her the chance to reflect on her own journey while hopefully being able to connect with others, and she hopes to keep writing alongside her studies as a way to capture moments, feelings, and the details of everyday life.
Second Place
“I try to want to be here, in this phony living room with him, but I don’t think I do. I feel the minutes tick by, like the room is watching me. His face kills me, it’s sick. Sick. Sick. Sick."
Haelyn King (Green Bay High School): 'Double Solitaire'
Haelyn King is currently a Year 12 student at Green Bay High School in Auckland. She enjoys reading, writing, and making art in her spare time, on a constant search for new ways to create. Haelyn loves being immersed in fiction, particularly enjoying dystopian fiction and the found family trope. Haelyn is also driven to pursue a career in zoology, a dream she has clung to since she was three years old. She volunteers at Auckland Zoo. She has enjoyed writing from a very early age, and has been encouraged by teachers and family. Ever since she could read, it has been her favourite pastime, developing into her love for writing as well. Although her passion for writing has been consistent over her life, the Sargeson Prize is one of the first competitions she has entered.
Third Place
“Like when we watched a video of the Capitol Riots in history, and it looked kinda fun: the way their necks strained as they entered the rotunda. It was ‘their house’, they said. The crowd seemed to move as one."
Thomas Beaglehole-Smith (Wellington College): 'Glory Keeps Fucking with My Throat'
Thomas Beaglehole-Smith is a Year 13 student at Wellington College who writes short stories and poetry. He received a Highly Commended at last year’s Mansfield Short Story Award. Other than writing, Thomas spends his time debating, walking his dog, or cleaning his room. Next year, he will be attending university to study Law and Arts and plans to continue writing. He would also like to give a shoutout to his beautiful girlfriend, Sophie. ‘Glory Keeps Fucking with My Throat’ was originally written as part of a VicStart university course, where Thomas took to heart the maxim that you should speak from where you stand. It was partially inspired by (the GOAT) Tayi Tibble’s work. He hopes it makes you feel uncomfortable.
Highly Commended
- Jeremy Guy (Wellington College): ‘On the Seventh Day’
- Anouk Hector-Taylor (Cashmere High School): ‘Crests and Troughs’
- Elizabeth Houghton (Hutt Valley High School): ‘Jewel Wasp Cockroach’
- Bryony Keynes (Whangarei Girls’ High School): ‘Confluence’
- Amelie Lewis (Kristin School): ‘The Camellias’
- Emily Feng Yi Ng (Villa Maria College): ‘As It Is Written’
- Helianth Nguyen (Westlake Girls’ High School): ‘As a mother to a mother’
- Polly O’Sullivan-Watts (Westlake Girls’ High School): ‘Ritualistic Hunger’
- Thalia Peterson (Home-schooled): ‘Onsra’
- Grace Sutherland (Kuranui College): ‘Ångermanälven’
- Nenabella Sutherland-Demmocks (Mt Hobson Academy): ‘Small’
Past Winners
Results – 2024 Sargeson Prize
In 2024, we received 1092 entries in the Open Division and 214 in the Secondary Schools Division; a total of 1306 stories.
Open Division winners
First Place
“The rain didn’t let up for a week. The rivers swelled, turned pastel and broke their banks. People were so focused on all the slash that came down off the forestry blocks that no one stopped to consider what else might have shifted.”
Ben Jeffries (Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland): ‘Greywacke’
Benn Jeffries is a Wellington-born writer. His work has appeared in the New Zealand Listener, The New York Times and other publications.
Previously an adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York, he once again calls Wellington home.
'Greywacke' was published on ReadingRoom(20 October 2024).
Second Place
“Robinson knows Kimba needs a bit of work. He’s not sure about her name, for starters. There’s a niggle that an uncle had a dog by that name. The kind of itch that even Google can’t scratch. She can’t have a dog’s name.”
Craig Cliff (Ōtepoti Dunedin): 'Robinson in the Roof Space'
Craig Cliff is the author of two novels and a short story collection. His work has been described as ‘odd but rewarding’ (The Sunday Times) and translated into German, Spanish and Romanian.
‘Robinson in the Roof Space’ was written in two spurts, several years apart. The most recent spurt was this autumn while writer-in-residence at the Michael King Writers Centre in Devonport. Craig lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin and works in climate action at the University of Otago.
‘Robinson in the Roof Space’ was published on ReadingRoom (26 October 2024).
Third Place
“His head was framed by the sun behind him, and with a kind of clarity, I decided that he was unlike anyone I had ever met, in his singularity, the absence of self-doubt, his utter conviction in his own vision. The way he arched, like an arrow, so steadily toward his future.”
Cello Forrester (Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland): 'Michael'
Cello Forrester is a musician and writer. Now based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Cello spent their childhood first surrounded by the gum trees of so-called Australia and then in the suburban Midwest of the United States, before moving to Aotearoa at twelve.
Cello completed a Masters in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2018. They are in the Flying Nun band Womb, alongside their siblings, and will be releasing their third album One Is Always Heading Somewhere, in early 2025. Cello is currently working on their first novel.
‘Michael’ was published on ReadingRoom (2 November 2024).
Highly Commended
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Gina Butson (Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland): 'At the Buyer’s Risk'
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Timothy Jones (Dunblane, Scotland): ‘Second Unit’
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Deborah Wilton (North Vancouver, Canada): ‘Pink Elephant'
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Jake Arthur (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): ‘Playing Hooky’
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Rebecca Blackhurst (Buller): ‘The Clappers’
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Sara Bucher (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): ‘Weird Fishes’
Secondary Schools Division winners
First Place
“Red filled the tubes as they took your blood for testing, and your crimson saree was handed to me; they said you had to change. Red was my anxiety. The days and days spent by your bedside. I clung to the crimson cloth with my life.”
Reshma Tala (Lynfield College): 'Burgundy Bindi'
Reshma Tala is currently a Year 13 student at Lynfield College in Auckland. Her writing usually draws inspiration from her heritage, childhood, and other personal experiences.
In her free time, Reshma enjoys playing and coaching netball, swimming, and reading. She is part of the Puketāpapa Youth Foundation, a group that organises a range of community events. Reshma has also won the GirlBoss Edge Outstanding Achievement Award for raising awareness for race unity in 2020. Next year, Reshma will be attending university and hopes to continue writing short stories.
‘Burgundy Bindi’ was published on ReadingRoom (9 November).
Second Place
“She’s always found ticking boxes to be one of life’s greatest pleasures – nothing fills her with the same immense satisfaction as indulging in an especially lavish checkmark.”
Tessa Marshall (Avonside Girls’ High School): 'The contributor'
Tessa Marshall is a Year 13 student at Avonside Girls’ High School – Te Kura Kohine o Ōtakaro. Born and raised in Ōtautahi, she enjoys being outdoors, painting, languages, as well as creative writing. She is also passionate about playing the clarinet and cello.
‘The contributor’ aims to surprise the reader with a dark twist at the end, while maintaining a humorous tone throughout. It was inspired by short pieces from authors Edgar Allan Poe and Lani Wendt Young. The uninspiring urban UK setting arose from a desire to both connect with and poke fun at her English culture.
Third Place
“Elliette. It was exactly the kind of name I expected her to have. One that twirled and dipped, that sounded like fresh raspberries or delicately spun sugar.”
Juliet Blythe (Waimea College): 'Saturn’s Orbit'
Juliet Blythe is a Year 11 writer and poet living in Nelson with her family. Fond of reciting history facts and reading an entire novel in one sitting, she can also be found herding her friends into enthusiastic renditions of Oscar Wilde’s plays.
She responds to Writer's Block by making lists on loose pieces of paper that her bonkers cat eventually eats, and her favourite word is ‘squirelling’. Most of her work is inspired by her experiences as a young queer woman, growing up in a smaller town, and the sweeping prose of classic literature. Along with local and school awards for writing, she placed runner-up in the Under-16 Fiction category of the 2023 Out on the Shelves Writing Competition. She has written two fantasy novels and is currently working on a 1920s murder mystery.
Highly Commended
- Mina Belle Garay (Tawa College): ‘The Crescent Ace Constellation’
- Sue Park (Glenfield College): ‘I Sang When I Was Twelve’
- Madeleine Walker (Waikato Diocesan School for Girls): ‘A Matchstick’
- Micah Bradburn (Otago Girls’ High School): ‘Conversations in my mother’s garden’
- Carissime Alfante (St Dominic’s Catholic College, Henderson): ‘The Rosebush’
- Amaya Colombick (Kāpiti College): ‘The House That Jack Built’
Results – 2023 Sargeson Prize
In 2023, we received 835 entries in the Open Division and 231 in the Secondary Schools Division; a total of 1066 stories.
Open Division Winners
First Place
“I thought about the pig often that day, somehow transposing its arrival with Paul’s disappearance – swapping the two so whichever I thought of reminded me of rutting and heaviness, of loam and blood.”
Anna Woods (Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland): 'Pig Hunting' (PDF)
Anna Woods is a Tāmaki Makaurau writer. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in New Zealand journals and anthologies including Landfall, takahē,The Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook and elsewhere.
The manuscript she completed with the support of Alison Wong during her 2019 NZSA mentorship was shortlisted for the 2022 Michael Gifkins Prize for an Unpublished Novel.
Anna Woods was the Caselberg Trust Elizabeth Brooke-Carr Emerging Writer Resident for 2022. In 2023, she completed a Master of Creative Writing at the University of Auckland, for which she received the Crystal Arts Trust Scholarship.
"Pig Hunting" was published on ReadingRoom (4 November 2023)
Second Place
“Privacy, she said, was something that she was now thinking a lot about, because she’d assumed her communication to the student was private, that it was undertaken in a private capacity, but it had nonetheless taken on this public and therefore disciplinary life.”
Jake Arthur (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): 'On Beauty' (PDF)
Jake Arthur is a lecturer in English and Literary and Creative Communication at Victoria University of Wellington.
His first book of poetry, A Lack of Good Sons, was published in 2023 (THWUP), and he has also been published in Sport, Turbine, Sweet Mammalian and Food Court. He has a PhD in Renaissance literature and translation from Oxford University.
"On Beauty" was published on ReadingRoom (11 November 2023)
Third Place
“On Friday nights, if there are no parties on, we work our way through a flagon of apple wine and consider our options. The first time, I end up asleep under the ferns in the garden, face down amongst the shredded pine and chunks of bark.”
Claire Gray (Ōtautahi Christchurch): 'Apple Wine' (PDF)
Claire Gray lives in Ōtautahi, Christchurch. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Canterbury and in 2022 completed her MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her short stories have been published in ReadingRoom, Headland, Turbine, and Swamp.
She is currently working on her first novel: a crime story based in Ōtautahi.
When she’s not writing, you can find Claire running in the hills or after her teenage daughter.
"Apple Wine" was published on ReadingRoom (18 November 2023)
Highly Commended
- Rebecca Ball (West Melton): ‘How it is in dreams’
- Majella Cullinane (Ōtepoti Dunedin): ‘The Long Way Home’
- Breton Dukes (Ōtepoti Dunedin): ‘The Boys’
- Emma Martin (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): ‘The New Rain’
- Jackie Lee Morrison (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington): ‘She Who Hears the Suffering of the World’
- Naomii Seah (Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland): ‘Two hundred and seventeen over three’
Secondary School Division Winners
First Place
“He adores the thickness of my lips and thighs. I’m starting to forgive him since he can’t possibly understand why watching her is violent. He has never met the young girl I once was, born to a Nigerian father and mother, but who grew up surrounded by foreigners.”
Tunmise Adebowale (St Hilda’s Collegiate School): 'The Catastrophe of Swimming' (PDF)
Tunmise Adebowale is a Year 13 student at St Hilda’s Collegiate School in Dunedin. She is a member of Ōtepoti Writers Lab and Dunedin Youth Writers Association. Tunmise is a Nigerian-born New Zealander and writes from her personal experience surrounding being a third-culture kid who was born in Nigeria, raised in South Africa and moved to New Zealand.
Her writing draws inspiration from different cultures and languages that influenced her growing up. Tunmise is the winner of the 2023 Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook poetry competition for the Year 13 category. Her work has been published in the 2021 Re-Draft edition, NZ Poetry Shelf, Verb Wellington, Minor Gospel, and was featured in the Canadian theatre company Threatrefolk’s 2021 BIPOC Voices and Perspectives Monologue Collection.
Tunmise was invited to read some of her writing pieces at the 2023 National Flash Fiction NZ and the National Poetry Day events. She has also performed her poems at the New Zealand Young Writers Festival.
"The Catastrophe of Swimming" was published on ReadingRoom (25 November 2023)
Second Place
“There is someone here. Someone I do not know. I am afraid. Their heartbeat is unfamiliar, a rumbling hum of redness. It is sticky. Their feet are steady and their steps are even. Their shoes are clean.”
Leo Reid (Hillcrest High School): 'triptych'(PDF)
Leo — or Pigeon depending on who you ask — was born in County Durham, England. When he was twelve, he moved to Aotearoa, and has since immersed himself in arts and crafts. He won the People’s Choice Award in the 2022 National Youth Art Awards and maintains that there is no joy in life if you do not see at least one creature a day.
He is inspired by authors such as Philip Pullman, Leslie Feinberg and Keri Hulme, as well as poets Danez Smith and Franny Choi.
Outside of writing, Leo can be commonly found reading or engaging in other creative endeavours. In typical writing fashion, Leo enjoys em-dashes, avoiding writing, semi-colons, oxford commas, and his bookmarked tab for Thesaurus.com. He lives in the Waikato with his family.
Third Place
“Gum wrapper, vape capsule, grey-stone grit. No boy. None of his footprints left. No space for him in the stone. None for me either, really, but I stand there, waiting for him.”
Jade Wilson (Kaiapoi High School): 'Archaeological' (PDF)
Jade Wilson is a queer and half-Samoan aspiring poet, artist, and writer from North Canterbury. She is currently the Head Girl at Kaiapoi High School, and award winner of the 2023 Waitaha GirlBoss Arts & Culture Award. Jade is a returning writer for the Sargeson Prize, having placed second in the Secondary Schools Division in 2021.
Her writing draws inspiration from scientific ideas, culture, nature and art, with this story being influenced by the erosion of coastal cultural and heritage sites by climate change.
Jade will attend university in 2024 and plans to continue writing stories and poems that reflect her passions for the arts and the environment, in addition to studying towards a future in Science Communication.
Highly Commended
- Jave Lafuente (Glenfield College): ‘Waiting Room’
- Anaya Mundamattam (Taieri College): ‘Estranged’
- Zee Murray (Tauraroa Area School): ‘Tragedy’
- Sue Park (Glenfield College): ‘Aerie and the Lark’
- Mal Siobhan (Motueka High School): ‘Chasing Ghosts’
- Stella Weston (Rotorua Lakes High School): ‘An Analysis of Biking’
Results – 2022 Sargeson Prize
In 2022, we received 960 entries in the Open Division and 165 in the Secondary Schools Division; a total of 1125 stories.
Open Division Winners
First Place
"My father opens the door. I hesitate. He’s not who usually answers when I knock. He doesn’t step back to let me in and takes forever to say my name. Then he repeats it several times, me nodding along, the way you do with a child struggling to pronounce a difficult word."
Leeanne O'Brien (Piha): 'Crawl Space'(PDF)
Leeanne O'Brien has a BSc in Geology and Geophysics. She is a lawyer who has worked as a legislative drafter for the last 20 years. She has been shortlisted twice in the New Zealand Flash Fiction competition (2022 and 2019) and was also the 2019 Auckland regional prizewinner.
She was runner-up in the 2016 takahē Short Story Competition. She has had a small piece published in the 2020 volume of Mayhem. In 1972 she was the Mt Roskill Swim Club Under 8 Girls Champion.
"Crawl Space" was published on ReadingRoom (15 October 2022)
Second Place
"But in the bathroom a creeping feeling came over her as soon as she looked in the mirror. People put cameras in places like this. She’d read about it. He was exactly the type to put a camera behind the mirror. Don’t ask how she knew – she just knew."
Emily Perkins (Wellington): 'The Warning' (PDF)
Photo credit: Ebony Lamb
Emily Perkins’ first book was the short story collection Not Her Real Name, published in 1996. She has written five novels, including Novel About My Wife, The Forrests, and the forthcoming Lioness. Her books have won awards in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and United States.
Her writing for stage and screen includes the original play The Made (2022) and an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, both with Auckland Theatre Company. Together with director Alison Maclean she adapted Eleanor Catton’s novel The Rehearsal into a feature film.
Emily is co-editor of The Fuse Box, a collection of essays on the writing process. She has taught creative writing for a number of years, most recently at the International Institute of Modern Letters, and her broadcasting work includes presenting The Book Show and The Good Word on TVNZ7.
Emily is an Arts Foundation Laureate and in 2017 was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature.
"The Warning" was published on ReadingRoom (22 October 2022)
Third Place
"Now, in the foreground, right at the edge of the frame, I am drawing Brendon Varney. I am drawing him from behind, because I am not good at faces. I am using the faintest of lines, since he is not sure if he wants to be there. Only the back of his head is visible, and one shoulder."
Stephen Coates (Japan): 'Brendon Varney Opens the Door' (PDF)
Stephen Coates comes from Christchurch, where ‘Brendon Varney Opens the Door’ is set. Although he has been living in Japan for many years, he still definitely thinks of himself as a New Zealand writer. His stories have appeared in Landfall, takahē and Headland, as well as various overseas journals (mainly the US). While he is full of admiration for novelists who can think up several hundred pages of plot, his brain seems to be hard-wired for short stories. He tells himself that this is not because he has a short attention span – in fact, a 1,500-word story can take him months or even years to finish (his record is over 25 years between first draft and publication). The main reason he is drawn to short stories is that he loves the discipline required, where every word matters. He is also a firm believer in Terry Pratchett’s maxim that ‘Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.’
"Brandon Varney Opens the Door" was published on ReadingRoom (29 October 2022)
Highly Commended
- Kate Duignan (Wellington): 'Sugar'
- Kirsty Gunn (United Kingdom): 'Transgression'
- Dr Himali McInnes (Auckland): 'Stripes'
- Rob Fisherman (Palmerston North): 'The Jazz Packers'
- Liz Breslin (Dunedin): 'Baba Jaga: Redux'
- Dara Flaws (Wellington): 'The Last Night'
Secondary School Division Winners
First Place
"He still spouted the same kind of rubbish he used to. He always came up with weird words for normal things – the seagulls which gathered in front of us were ‘sea chickens’, the bench a ‘people-shelf’, a downy feather by his feet which he kicked at was a ‘bird-leaf’."
Shima Jack (Logan Park High School): 'Fourth Wall' (PDF)
Shima Jack is a Year 13 student at Logan Park High School in Dunedin. She is the founder and one of the coordinators of the Dunedin Youth Writers Association, and a co-editor of the group’s monthly writing anthology Minor Gospel. Her writing draws inspiration from music, art, film, theatre, science, and personal experience.
Shima placed third equal in the 2021 Poetry New Zealand Yearbook poetry competition, first in the 2021 Sargeson Prize Secondary Schools Division, second in the 2022 Charles Brasch Essay Competition, and has been included in 2019, 2020 and 2021 Re-Draft editions. She was also selected to participate in the 2022 NZSA Youth Mentorship Programme.
"Fourth Wall" was published on ReadingRoom (5 November 2022)
Second Place
"I wonder what my mother will think when she wakes up and realises I’m not home. The awful things I said last night sit, like plump little buddhas, chanting at how awful I am to make her worry. But I can’t change for her, not this time, not again."
Maggie Yang (Kristin School): 'Breaking up, breaking down' (PDF)
Maggie Yang is a seventeen-year-old Chinese-New Zealander and attends Kristin School. Since she has learnt to read, she has never stopped, and she fell in love with langauge and writing. Although she has been writing since she was young, the Sargeson Prize competition is one of the first she has submitted her work to.
Maggie finds inspiration in everything she sees and experiences; slowly, small ideas build up until some fit together to form a story. This short story originated from two ideas: the tragedy of people falling out of love, and the oftentimes painful relationship between the art and the artist. When Maggie saw her old pointe shoes, this story was born.
Third Place
"When I swear in Arabic it’s a prayer. When I pray it’s a lie. It feels wrong for me to use this tongue; I’m clumsy and uncertain and it doesn’t feel natural in my mouth the way it should. I’m a liar."
Reema Arsilan (Hauraki Plains College): 'A Half-Truth is a Lie' (PDF)
Reema Arsilan is eighteen years old and is a Year 13 at Hauraki Plains College. She has always loved words, and has been an avid reader and writer for most of her life. The endless support of teachers, family and friends has really encouraged her to keep writing and sharing her work, with this year being the first year she has submitted any of it to competitions.
Reema enjoys writing short stories and flash fiction, and hopes to continue developing her style and technique as she writes. She will be attending university in 2023, and intends to keep writing the stories she would want to read.
Highly Commended
- Ella Sage (Westland High School): 'Face in the Space'
- Beth Allwood (Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu): 'Her Garden'
- Ana Faville (Palmerston North Girls' High School): 'Mr Sandman'
- Ella Quarmby (Ōtūmoetai College): 'Syll-a-bles'
- Minna Zhu (Wakatipu School): 'Melody'
Results - 2021 Sargeson Prize
In 2021, we received almost 850 entries in the Open Division, and almost 150 in the Secondary Schools Division; a total of 986 stories.
Open Division Winners
First Place
"Saartjie waits for me at the gate, though the sky has turned raw and red. She pulls out a string of porcupine quills she’s tied into a circle as if this can make her lies right. I don’t move when she places the spines over my head and they rattle, hollow boned, as she ties them tight."
Lara Markstein (Waikawa): 'Good Men' (PDF)
Born in South Africa, raised in Aotearoa, with a longer than intended interlude in the United States, Lara Markstein lives in Waikawa, Marlborough. Her work has appeared in a variety of literary journals, including Glimmer Train, Agni Online, and The Michigan Quarterly Review, among others, and has been recognized by the Pushcart awards.
She graduated from Harvard University with a BA in English and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. She is currently completing an epistolary novel, titled Little Wonder.
"Good Men" was published on ReadingRoom (16 October 2021)
Second Place
Mikee Sto Domingo (Wellington): 'The Duwende' (PDF)
"The duwende in our house had started acting real baliw. Since forever we’d had it, the tiny fuck with its ugly gnomey face, skittering around in the walls at night, up to some low-key mischief like busting open the windows to let in the mould and damp, and eating our food while we slept."
Mikee Sto Domingo is a Filipino-New Zealander currently living and working in Te-Whanganui-a-tara. She has a BA in English Literature from Victoria University and an MA from the International Institute of Modern Letters. Mikee has been published in Turbine, Salient and A Clear Dawn: New Asian Voices from Aotearoa New Zealand.
"The Warning" was published on ReadingRoom (16 October 2021)
Third Place
"When I asked Brayden why he left school before Year 13 to come work here he said he’d been 'called to move' back when COVID was around and the people on Twitter were calling supermarket staff 'heroes'."
Jordan Hamel (Wellington): 'Unexpected item in the bagging area'(PDF)
Stephen Coates comes from Christchurch, where ‘Brendon Varney Opens the Door’ is set. Although he has been living in Japan for many years, he still definitely thinks of himself as a New Zealand writer. His stories have appeared in Landfall, takahē and Headland, as well as various overseas journals (mainly the US). While he is full of admiration for novelists who can think up several hundred pages of plot, his brain seems to be hard-wired for short stories. He tells himself that this is not because he has a short attention span – in fact, a 1,500-word story can take him months or even years to finish (his record is over 25 years between first draft and publication). The main reason he is drawn to short stories is that he loves the discipline required, where every word matters. He is also a firm believer in Terry Pratchett’s maxim that ‘Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.’
"Brandon Varney Opens the Door" was published on ReadingRoom (29 October 2022)
Highly Commended
- Kate Duignan (Wellington): 'Sugar'
- Kirsty Gunn (United Kingdom): 'Transgression'
- Dr Himali McInnes (Auckland): 'Stripes'
- Rob Fisherman (Palmerston North): 'The Jazz Packers'
- Liz Breslin (Dunedin): 'Baba Jaga: Redux'
- Dara Flaws (Wellington): 'The Last Night'
Secondary School Division Winners
First Place
"He still spouted the same kind of rubbish he used to. He always came up with weird words for normal things – the seagulls which gathered in front of us were ‘sea chickens’, the bench a ‘people-shelf’, a downy feather by his feet which he kicked at was a ‘bird-leaf’."
Shima Jack (Logan Park High School): 'Fourth Wall' (PDF)
Shima Jack is a Year 13 student at Logan Park High School in Dunedin. She is the founder and one of the coordinators of the Dunedin Youth Writers Association, and a co-editor of the group’s monthly writing anthology Minor Gospel. Her writing draws inspiration from music, art, film, theatre, science, and personal experience.
Shima placed third equal in the 2021 Poetry New Zealand Yearbook poetry competition, first in the 2021 Sargeson Prize Secondary Schools Division, second in the 2022 Charles Brasch Essay Competition, and has been included in 2019, 2020 and 2021 Re-Draft editions. She was also selected to participate in the 2022 NZSA Youth Mentorship Programme.
"Fourth Wall" was published on ReadingRoom (5 November 2022)
Second Place
"I wonder what my mother will think when she wakes up and realises I’m not home. The awful things I said last night sit, like plump little buddhas, chanting at how awful I am to make her worry. But I can’t change for her, not this time, not again."
Maggie Yang (Kristin School): 'Breaking up, breaking down' (PDF)
Maggie Yang is a seventeen-year-old Chinese-New Zealander and attends Kristin School. Since she has learnt to read, she has never stopped, and she fell in love with langauge and writing. Although she has been writing since she was young, the Sargeson Prize competition is one of the first she has submitted her work to.
Maggie finds inspiration in everything she sees and experiences; slowly, small ideas build up until some fit together to form a story. This short story originated from two ideas: the tragedy of people falling out of love, and the oftentimes painful relationship between the art and the artist. When Maggie saw her old pointe shoes, this story was born.
Third Place
"When I swear in Arabic it’s a prayer. When I pray it’s a lie. It feels wrong for me to use this tongue; I’m clumsy and uncertain and it doesn’t feel natural in my mouth the way it should. I’m a liar."
Reema Arsilan (Hauraki Plains College): 'A Half-Truth is a Lie' (PDF)
Reema Arsilan is eighteen years old and is a Year 13 at Hauraki Plains College. She has always loved words, and has been an avid reader and writer for most of her life. The endless support of teachers, family and friends has really encouraged her to keep writing and sharing her work, with this year being the first year she has submitted any of it to competitions.
Reema enjoys writing short stories and flash fiction, and hopes to continue developing her style and technique as she writes. She will be attending university in 2023, and intends to keep writing the stories she would want to read.
Highly Commended
- Ella Sage (Westland High School): 'Face in the Space'
- Beth Allwood (Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu): 'Her Garden'
- Ana Faville (Palmerston North Girls' High School): 'Mr Sandman'
- Ella Quarmby (Ōtūmoetai College): 'Syll-a-bles'
- Minna Zhu (Wakatipu School): 'Melody'
Results - 2020 Sargeson Prize
In 2020, we received more than 700 entries in the Open Division, and more than 100 in the Secondary Schools Division; a total of 860 stories.
The winning story from the Open Division was published in Landfall 240. The second and third placing stories were published in Mayhem 8, along with the winning story from the Secondary Schools Division. You can now read all of the winning stories below.
Open Division Winners
First Place
"Sometimes I tell people I was a trapeze artist, how I flew through the air wearing a leotard, sequins sparkling under the lights of the Big Top. How I loved the whoosh of the air flying past my face, the thrill as my hands caught the bar at the very last moment. How my partner, Leonardo, was so shit hot that every girl in the troupe wanted to shag him."
Angela Pope (Dunedin): 'Lies' (PDF)
Angela Pope was born in the US, grew up in the UK and moved to New Zealand when she was 26. After abandoning a legal career, she worked as a PA, proofreader and transcriber. She even worked briefly as a tea lady, which she enjoyed because she got to ring a large bell. Finally, she settled on being a preschool teacher.
In between working and raising four children, she sometimes found time to write. She has had short stories and a play broadcast on Radio New Zealand and has had short plays produced in festivals including Short and Sweet in Sydney and Melbourne. In 2018, Angela won the Rhys Brookbanks Prize for Writing. She is currently studying for a graduate diploma in Creative Writing through Massey University whilst also editing her first novel. She lives in Dunedin with her husband, youngest son, three chickens and a small dog.
Second Place
“How tall is that man?” Zac whispers to Seamus. “Seven foot? Is that what seven foot looks like? Do you think it’s part of the job description, being that tall? Do you think they breed them? Like there’s some sort of a puppy farm somewhere for National Outputs Managers?”
Sally Franicevich (Auckland): 'The Consolidation Phase' (PDF)
Sally Franicevich is an Auckland writer currently working on a Masters of Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. She has worked as a union organiser, an employment mediator and now works part-time as an adviser in employment relations.
Sally mainly writes short fiction and drafts of novels which, so far, she has abandoned. She won the Fish Publishing Prize in 2013 for her story, 'The Nut Machine', which was published in Fish Anthology 2013: 'The Nut Machine' and Other Stories. In 2016, her story 'Uncle Frank’s Turkeys' was shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize and published in the Bridport Prize Anthology of stories for that year. She’s also had work published in Moondance, Eclecticisms and Less than Three Press.
Third Place
"We lay still in the aftermath, quiet as the last several hours slowly remembered themselves behind this wall of mute silence pushing through the room. Dark then, immediate with the hush. The absence of light felt sudden, true, as if all our belongings had vanished in this hastily arranged blackness."
David Coventry (Wellington): 'Apologies, Please' (PDF)
David Coventry is a Wellington-based writer. His debut, The Invisible Mile, described in Landfall as a work that ‘immediately places Coventry among the elite of New Zealand authors’, was translated into five languages and published in over 15 countries. The book won the Hubert Church Award for Best First Book at the 2016 Ockham’s and was also shortlisted for the main prize.
His second novel, Dance Prone, an epic of punk rock and artistic desire, has been described as 'astounding', 'intelligent, intimate and raw', and ‘[one] of the finest in recent New Zealand literature.’
Highly Commended
- Chris Yee (Wellington): 'Christchurch in Winter'
- Majella Cullinane (Dunedin): 'Falling Softly'
- Tobias Buck (Havelock North): 'Hecuba'
- Edith Poor (Auckland): 'Thursday'
- Susanna Elliffe (Paihia): 'White noise machines'
Secondary School Division Winners
First Place
"The woman continued to say 'Nicki', the name of Dad’s dead father, stroking his hands still held in hers as if they were the years that had passed without knowing him."
Amelia Isac (Samuel Marsden Collegiate School): 'Nic' (PDF)
Amelia Isac is a Year 13 student at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School in Wellington where she studies sciences, maths, English and music. She grew up in Palmerston North and Wellington, and has always had a broad interest in the arts, as well as being a keen football player. She is a classically trained pianist who has played solo and chamber music for a number of years. Amelia loves drama and live performance, and has always read widely. She particularly enjoys the poetry of Sappho and Emily Dickinson, and the works of Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf, from whom she draws inspiration in her own writing. Her story is based on the complexities of family history and of understanding culture and experience in different times and places.
Second Place
"Sometimes he thinks that he wants to fly an aeroplane, seatbelt forcing him into the chair as he takes off and escapes into the atmosphere, dandelion seeds whirling in a storm of iceberg fluff."
Zia Ravenscroft (Feilding High School): 'Twelve for a Wicked Curse' (PDF)
Zia Ravenscroft (he/they pronouns) studies at Feilding High School, and is inspired to write by his experiences of LGBTQ+ identity, fantasy escapism, and mental health in a small rural town. He taught himself to read when he was three, decided he wanted to be an author when he was six, and now is discovering that dream coming true. Drama is another of Zia’s passions, and he has performed at Regional Shakespeare Festivals for four years and placed third two years running in the Manawatu Secondary School Theatresports Competition. His writing style is influenced by Romanticism and Ancient Greek poetry, alternative and emo song lyrics, and his diverse family history. Zia has a growing list of supportive teachers, mentors and family members who have asked him to dedicate his first book to them. That may be in the future, but he is always exploring his creativity and can’t wait to write ‘The End’ on a page.
Third Place
"Five is me and twelve is him. May has filled the gutters with rotting leaves and wild plums and instant dinner packets dumped by careless creatures. We have gumboots on, red is mine and blue is his and the clouds above are purple."
Darcy Monteath (Logan Park High School): '3 levels of mandatory obedience & sapien rebellion' (PDF)
Darcy Monteath is in Year 11 at Logan Park High School in Dunedin. She’s always enjoyed literature and books and loves to write in her spare time (whether that be poetry or short stories). She has grown up in the same city all of her life, so she has a strong connection to Dunedin and its culture. Darcy has only just begun entering her work into competitions and this year she won first place in the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook student poetry competition and will be published in the 2021 edition. Darcy often writes about experiences or feelings, and she likes to incorporate special nostalgic objects or places that make the pieces of writing feel personal and individualised. Since a young age, writing has always been a passion of hers and she hopes to continue on her story-telling journey as she moves forward!
Highly Commended
- Cadence Chung (Wellington High School): 'The Locket'
- Leila Barber (Samuel Marsden Collegiate School): 'Copse/Corpse'
- Anna Doyle (Marlborough Girls College): 'A Blind Love Story'
Results - 2019 Sargeson Prize
In 2019, we received 608 entries in the Open Division, and 120 in the Secondary Schools Division; a total of 728 stories.
Open Division Winners
First Place
"‘Some of us must live in the dark,’ says Miss Honour in morning science. ‘There have to be those who are unfortunate or the word fortunate would not exist.’ She teaches us to hear loneliness in the throats of birds, and how the sound in the valley is a deep hollow you can feel."
Sam Keenan (Wellington): 'Better Graces' (PDF)
Sam Keenan lives in Wellington with her husband and a Noah's Ark of pets. Her work has appeared in Landfall, Cordite, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, Sunday Star-Times, and a number of New Zealand Poetry Society anthologies. She was the winner of the 2014 Story Inc prize for poetry, and she was awarded a New Zealand Society of Authors mentorship in 2016. Her story 'Interim' was placed second in the 2017 Sunday Star-Times short story competition, and her essay 'Bad Girls' came third in the 2018 Landfall essay competition. She has a PhD in English literature from Victoria University of Wellington and an MA with distinction from the International Institute of Modern Letters.
Second Place
"We could all have a sleepover and feel sorry for ourselves. And Elephant would come and live on Fancy Feast, and the rabbit with no ears would grow some back, like a miracle, like Jesus or the saints or the false prophets, but more House and Garden than Leprosy and Wine."
Elizabeth Morton (Auckland): 'Elephant' (PDF)
Auckland writer Elizabeth Morton is published in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada and the USA. She was the feature poet in the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2017, and is included in Best Small Fictions 2016. Her first poetry collection, Wolf, was published with Mākaro Press in 2017. She twice came second in the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition, and was highly commended in the Kathleen Grattan Award (2016). In 2013 she won the New Voices – Emerging Poets Competition. She completes her MLitt at Glasgow University this coming December. When she thinks nobody is watching, she writes bad rap, and lip-syncs to The Talking Heads.
Third Place
"But the daddy does not hack the silverside; he shicks the knife up and down a steel, checks it’s sharp on the pad of his thumb and sails the blade clean through the fist of meat. The mummy lops divots of butter off a pound block into a pot of potatoes; she trickles milk from a porcelain jug but she does not bludgeon the spuds."
Hamish Ansley (Hamilton): 'Vicious Traditions' (PDF)
Hamish Ansley is a sometimes-poet and writer of short fiction from Kirikiriroa, Hamilton, New Zealand. He completed a Masters thesis about masculinity in contemporary fiction at the University of Waikato in 2017.
He was longlisted for the 2019 National Flash Fiction Day prize, and has words in Flash Frontier, Foodcourt, Mayhem, Poetry New Zealand, and Sweet Mammalian.
Highly Commended
- Robert Hurley (Wellington): 'Heel Turn'
- Kathryn van Beek (Port Chalmers): 'The Nor'Wester'
- Susanna Gendall (Wellington): 'Hunting'
- Zoë Meager (Christchurch): 'Together'
Secondary School Division Winners
First Equal
"The visitor at the door is a woman. Sebastian turns over and squeezes his eyes shut, forehead and nose pressed into the fraying carpet, hands coming up over his ears. If only there were something to cling to beyond his own body. There are strange things creeping up behind him as he lies and compresses himself down. He is becoming the soot on his father’s old shoes."
Elijah Neilson-Edwards (Wellington High School): 'Stray Dog' (PDF)
Elijah Neilson-Edwards was born in Scotland and now studies at Wellington High School, taking philosophy, biology, painting, sculpture, and art history. From a young age he has taken an interest in language, being increasingly inspired by writing and reading fiction. Creative writing was one of his first genuine passions, and both visual art and music have a great influence on his writing style and subject matter. Following high school he is interested in tertiary study in the areas of art, art history, or literature. Eventually he would like to become a published novelist and write in a range of styles for different publications.
"And the old woman wears clothes worn loose and soft and smelling of mother. The old woman wears clothes made of blocks of solid colour. She is plain as the sky, an open palm of green. A breathing plain of grass. She is the shape of the wide dome of the world, the shape of open arms."
Xiaole Zhan (Westlake Girls High School): 'Woman, sitting in a garden' (PDF)
A recipient of the 2018 NZSA Youth Mentorship Award (mentored by Ivy Alvarez), Xiaole Zhan is the winner of the National Schools Poetry Award 2019, and the first Featured Student Poet of a fine line magazine. Her novella, The Extinct (Phantom Feather Press, 2019), was published as the recipient of the Editor’s Choice Award in the Young NZ Writers Youth Laureate Prize, and her essay 'In Defence of Confusion: Love, Adolescence, and Shakespeare’s Zoo of Humanity' placed first equal in the SGCNZ/Ida Gaskin Shakespeare Essay Competition with English at Otago. Recently, she had a poem displayed on Ross Island, Antarctica, as part of the International Antarctic Poetry Exhibition. Born in China, Xiaole Zhan grew up in New Zealand where her memories have accumulated and assembled into the growing story she tells herself today.
Second Place
"I used to want to go down to the creek with a bucket and scoop up what was left of him, the memory of the great eel, that I was told could live for a hundred years."
Ariana Happy (Marist College): 'Through Glass Eels' (PDF)
Ariana Happy is a senior student at Marist College, Mt Albert. She grew up in Te Atatu, West Auckland, and enjoys writing short fiction in her spare time. Ariana writes mostly on the topics of New Zealand nostalgia and the natural world. Within her school community, Ariana is a member of the Caritas group and is involved in the sustainable school network. Her passion for sustainability has led her to run a weekly environmental group at her school. Next year she will be attending AUT for a diploma in patisserie, but she hopes to continue writing in her spare time.
Third Place
"Kahu had insisted on wearing her sacred dress today. Nanny thought little girls should wear vibrant dresses that fitted their slim physiques, the type that had ruffles or patterns or stitches."
Amberlea Gordon (Christian Renewal School): 'The White Dress' (PDF)
Amberlea Gordon was born and raised in Whangarei. Growing up, her dyslexia meant she'd do anything to get out of reading. She learned to recognize pictures, hide in the woods, cry to dodge work, and manage low confidence and teasing from others. Through the grace of God, and her mum's patient home-schooling Amberlea overcame her dyslexia, learning to love literature and read her first novel, Trixie Belden, at twelve. Amberlea's English teachers encouraged her to enter her story in the competition, and she wants to give a shout out to them and other teachers who have more faith in their students than the students do in themselves. Amberlea's mum continued buying her books and often bragged to her friends about her daughter’s writing. Sadly, shortly before Amberlea turned fifteen, her mother died. She plans to be a writer because of her Mum. This one’s for her.
Highly Commended
- Banisha Barkha Pratap (Papatoetoe High School): 'Pink Bloody Mess'
- Victoria Sun (Epsom Girls Grammar School): 'Brian and Elliot'
- Caitlin Brennan (Nelson College for Girls): 'Validating my memories'