New Stories By Talented Writers Awarded 2023 NZSA Assessments

The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN NZ) Inc announce the writers who will receive manuscript guidance through this year's CompleteMS programme.

Compelling manuscripts crafted by thirteen talented writers, have been chosen to take part in this year's programme. Writers spend months polishing their stories for entry into this competitive and successful programme (open to NZSA members). Now each of the thirteen successful writers will receive a detailed assessment of their manuscript from one of Aotearoa/New Zealand's leading writers and approved assessors, followed by a Q+A session where they receive follow-up support.

Our congratulations to the NZSA CompleteMS 2023 recipients: Scarlett Bailey, Fiona Barber, Lilla Csorgo, Emelita Luisi, Sam Keenan, Kiri Lightfoot, Hannah Marshall, Jade McCann, Heather McQuillan, Rostislava Pankova-Karadjova, Joanne Paulsen, Jennifer Trevelyan, Paul Veart.

Pictures and profiles of CompleteMS recipients of 2023

61 entries were received for this year's CompleteMS assessment programme. Always fiercely contested, this programme continues to receive a high number of submissions. The selection panel of Caroline Barron, Sharon Manssen and Mikaela Nyman had their work cut out for them.

The selection panel commented: 'This year's manuscripts submitted for CompleteMS covered a wide spread of genres. These included fiction (adult and YA), poetry, non-fiction, memoir, auto-fiction, short stories, middle-grade fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, romance, crime and more. There were many excellent works in the submissions. If the writers who have submitted manuscripts samples here are anything to go by, it seems that Aotearoa writers are becoming more savvy in terms of what they are choosing to write—there were many excellent commercial, literary and crime fiction works in the submissions. Following the global trend, there were also several auto-fiction works in the mix (writing auto-fiction is a great way to get around some of the tricky aspects of writing memoir).'

Many past recipients have produced final manuscripts under this programme and achieved both publication and acclaim.

CompleteMS Manuscript Assessments are offered by The NZ Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa (Pen NZ) Inc every year with the intent of fostering and developing emerging talent with the support of established practitioners. The NZSA has run highly successful manuscript assessment and mentoring programmes for writers since 1999 and our programmes are supported by funding from Creative New Zealand.

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