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From the Principal

Her third Creative Writing course assignment asked for a short story. Karen Phillips had learned how to do this with a proper beginning, middle and end. Plus dialogue to drive the movement forward.

   Karen Phillips entered her short story in the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition. Then got on with her NZIBS correspondence course. 

   She won the novice section for previously unpublished authors. This year there were 662 entries. Later, Karen entered the Heartland 1000 Competition and she won that competition also, with a different story. We are all proud of her. 

   “Out of the blue I was invited to fly to Wellington for the results announcement” said the quiet school administrator from Ahipara, just south of Ninety Mile Beach. Her job at the local school involves administration and acquiring teachers’ resource materials. After family and domestic duties, Karen says “I read and write whenever I can find time to do it.”

   Her short story The Visit was described by competition judge Carl Nixon as “A very simple story, shorter than many entries at under 1500 words, but full of subtle emotions. It is a deserving winner that could hold its own with some of the best of New Zealand fiction.”

   "Karen’s tutor, Joan Rosier-Jones, recognised her third assignment story was good enough to enter in the Katherine Mansfield competition," said Brian Morris, principal at New Zealand Institute of Business Studies, where Karen is his student. 

   “Joan has been a competition judge herself many times, so she instantly saw the quality of the story. Other writing course students of the Institute have flooded praise upon Karen with comments like ‘Your win inspires the rest of us’.” 

“Two other students have achieved Highly Commended citations in other competitions this week, so there is a real buzz going around the Institute.” 

   “The friendship among students has to be via the Internet Student Discussion Board. Our students study by correspondence and they don’t usually meet in person” explained Brian Morris. “But it does mean a student living in the Far North is in the same supportive writing circle with someone in Rakaia or Akaroa. Writers without borders!”

   If you would like to read Karen’s winning short story, call the Institute and a free copy will be posted to you. Telephone 0800-801994 toll free. Or email ‘Winning short story please’ to registrar@nzibs.co.nz
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Janice Marriott attended the KM Awards night

“Last night I was at the Katherine Mansfield Awards, New Zealand’s most prestigious annual event for short story writing. It is sponsored by BNZ and was held in their astonishing new building in Wellington.

There are three award categories: secondary school students, novice (for previously unpublished writers) and the premier award, open to all writers.

The winner of the novice category was NZIBS student Karen Phillips, who is tutored by Joan Rosier-Jones.

This winning story, The Visit, started as an exercise in Assignment 3 of the course. This assignment asked for a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, a limit of 4 characters, and 400 - 500 words. After Karen wrote it Joan suggested she extend it and enter it in the KM awards - and the rest is history.

You are an inspiration to us all, Karen. Our best congratulations to you, and to Joan too.

Link to Karen’s short story =

 www.bnz.co.nz/binaries/2009-KMA-The-Visit-Novice.pdf

Link to judge Carl Nixon’s comments = www.bnz.co.nz/binaries/2009-KMA-Judge-Report-Novice.pdf

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Hang around publishers and work comes
Victoria Munro’s husband, Sam Barnes, is a scuba diver, fisherman and freelance contributor to NZ SPEARO, the new glossy magazine for underwater spear fishers.
Lesson one: If you hang around with the people who produce magazines they’ll soon find work for you.
Lesson two: Mention you’re studying proofreading at NZIBS. No prizes for guessing what your work will be.
Result: Victoria Munro is listed on the magazine masthead credits as Chief Sub-Editor.
   “One of the best techniques I use from my course is creating a Style List. I also use Track Changes.”
Victoria is not surprised when Muphry’s Law kicks in. But she’s proud to be part of the team producing a world class magazine.
   Brian Morris,  Principal  
PS: Muphry is the fellow who put the mistakes into Murphy’s Law.  
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Don’t overlook the LUCK factor
  I derive a lot of my inspiration from sports. Take the US Masters Golf Tournament as a case in point. Three players tied with exactly the same score after four days of high-pressure golf. This produced a sudden death play-off.
  One player, Angel Cabrera from Argentina, a country which has never produced a high profile golfer, was up against two hugely popular Americans. Commentators were calling the odds and the former poor-boy and one time caddy wasn’t on their list.
Angel’s drive landed among the trees in an extremely difficult lie. He went for the brave shot, straight through the forest. We heard his ball go CRACK against solid tree trunk.      
  Disaster? The ball could have angled off deeper into the forest. But LO! It deflected on to the green, giving him a dream position.
  Luck was on his side. But only because he didn’t go for the safe shot. He went for the daring shot. He went on to win.
                       Brian Morris,  Principal
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Mother & daughter work well together
The new ‘dynamic duo’ is Jenny Anderson (L) and Vicki Wong (R) of Invercargill. Mother and daughter have worked together for nine months gathering news, writing the text and making the photos. So far they have concentrated on gardening and lifestyle block farming topics.
“Mum does all the hard work” said Vicki. “She gets the story ideas, talks to the people, gathers all the facts and she writes the copy and captions. I just make the photos.” Jenny graduated as a NZIBS Freelance Journalist in 2002. Vicki will graduate from her Photography course in April.
Their features have appeared in Weekend Gardener and Organic New Zealand. Other media are on their target list.
“But now I’m taking a bunch of good photos and I’ll let Mum create the story around them afterwards,” said Vicki who is on assignment photographing the lovely gardens of Christchurch in their autumn colours.
 Brian Morris,  Principal