The competition for Otago staff, students and alumni was established in 2019 as part of the University’s 150th celebrations. It is organised by University publications editor Lisa Dick and English and linguistics programme senior teaching fellow Nicola Cummins.
This year’s theme was "The Getting of Wisdom", borrowed from Henry Handel Richardson’s famous Australian novel — and chosen to allow entrants to explore both the quality of wisdom and the process of its acquisition.
Close to 100 entries were received, for judging by current Burns Fellow Kathryn van Beek.
Ms van Beek said all entrants could be proud of their work.
"Each piece is thoughtful, funny, lyrical, well-structured, or emotionally moving, and many pieces have all of these qualities."
The six winning entries have been published across multiple platforms, including print, radio and social media.
The winners are: student poetry Kim Cope Tait; student fiction Sydney Rodriguez; staff poetry Mandy Phipps-Green; staff fiction Molly Crighton; alumni poetry Val O’Reilly; and alumni fiction Caellin (Monti) Rodgers.
The winning entries will be broadcast on Saturday, at 9am. Podcasts are available from oar.org.nz, Google podcasts and Apple Podcasts.
