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Judging panels named for the 2027 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

Millie Blackwell, Josiah Morgan, Neill Atkinson and Claire Regnault will convene the four category panels, with an international judge joining fiction at the shortlist stage.

By The Book Source21 September 20261 minute read

The judging panels for the 2027 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards have been announced, with an international judge to join the fiction panel when it chooses the winner.

Millie Blackwell, owner of Mrs Blackwell's Village Bookshop in Greytown, convenes the panel for the $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. She is joined by novelist and reviewer Linda Burgess and author Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Te Ata). The international judge will help pick the winner from a shortlist of four.

Christchurch writer and artist Josiah Morgan (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Maniapoto) convenes the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, judging with Dame Fiona Kidman and poet and translator Mikaela Nyman. Neill Atkinson, chief historian at Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage, leads the general non-fiction panel with RNZ broadcaster Susana Lei'ataua and University of Otago English professor Thomas McLean.

The BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction panel is convened by Claire Regnault of Tauranga Museum, who won the same award in 2022 for Dressed. Alongside her are Spencer Lilley (Te Ātiawa, Muaupoko, Ngāpuhi), an associate professor at Victoria University of Wellington, and writer and curator Emma Ng.

Entries for books published between 1 September and 31 December 2026 closed on 15 October. Longlists will be released on 28 January 2027 and a shortlist of 16 books on 3 March, with winners named on 12 May during the Auckland Writers Festival. New Zealand Book Awards Trust chair Nicola Legat said judging this year's entries "will be no easy task".

Original source: Kete Books ↗

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