Jennifer Lane wins 2026 NZSA Shaw Writer's Award for novel in progress

The $5,000 award, set up by novelist Tina Shaw for mid-career fiction writers, will support Lane's work on her novel Confession.

Jennifer Lane has won the 2026 NZSA Shaw Writer's Award, the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN NZ) has announced. The $5,000 prize will go towards Confession, the novel Lane is now writing.

Novelist Tina Shaw created the award to help mid-career fiction writers develop new novels. Lane said the money would buy her time to focus on the manuscript and work on it more intensively.

This year's judges were Rosetta Allan and David Hill. They said the applications covered a broad spread of fiction, including historical, speculative, crime and contemporary work for both young and adult readers. In Lane's entry they singled out the energy of the voice and the more challenging subject matter the novel takes on.

Shaw described Lane as "a committed and talented writer of fiction" whose work looks at the odder side of family life.

Earlier recipients include Steph Matuku, who used the award to finish The Blue Dawn, a novel set during New Zealand's early 19th century whaling era, and Cristina Sanders, who continued research for a time-travel story involving colonial governor Sir George Grey.