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Local author honoured to make award shortlist


JULIA WADE

14 March, 2022

 

5 MF-Liminalbook1 copy-208Only a year after launching her second novel, a local author has made the cut to be on the winning page for a national award with a quirky story about an unusual type of prescribed medicine.

Te Arai writer Jacquie McRae is currently placed on the NZ Booklovers 2022 ‘Best Adult Fiction Book Award’ shortlist for her story ‘The Liminal Space’, joining six other talented authors from around the country.

Notified of her story’s selection in February, the local award-winning writer, who won a gold medal in New York’s 2012 Independent Publisher Awards for her first novel ‘The Scent of Apples’, is understandably thrilled.

“I'm honoured to be a finalist so that to me already feels like a win. It took me years to write the book so it's lovely to get some feedback,” McRae says, who holds a Masters in Creative Writing. “Actual ‘liminal space’ is the gap between things, a transitional space which people often race through, but is also the place where possibilities live, as we consider our next move. My story is about a doctor who prescribes books instead of medicine.”

Booklovers NZ is an online book-lovers hub which showcases both New Zealand and international titles, and offering a forum for sharing articles, author interviews, reviews, competitions and writing advice. The adult ficton section is judged by author, reviewer and judge of the Ngaio Marsh Awards Stephanie Jones, publishing professional Rachel White, and NZ Booklovers director and author Karen McMillan, who all commented that ‘The Liminal Space’ was ‘a cohesive novel’ which wove together various compelling stories, ‘a bite-sized approach to storytelling that works extremely well’ with the ‘distinctive voices of each character a joy’ and ‘dark elements such as partner violence, are handled with a great deal of sensitivity’ and ‘the dominant theme is that people who need people, are the luckiest.’

Other categories are ‘Best Childrens Book’ and ‘Best Lifestyle Book’, which includes prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s husband, Clarke Gayford as co-nominee for ‘Fish of the Day’. Winners are to be announced on March 17 and will receive $500 each.

The local story teller has been a Pikihuia Award finalist twice, run sold out workshops in Raglan’s writers festival and written a number of short stories, and already has her third book outlined; an intriguing historical blend of two stories, set in New Zealand’s 1872 about a Scottish widow immigrant who makes moonshine in Southland’s Hokonui Hills, and a Maori woman who traverses the same peaks as she transports greenstone around Te Waipounamu. However, the story is on hold this year McRae says as she is ‘immersed’ in Te Reo at Waikato University: ‘I'm sure a lot of what I learn this year will

end up in the book somewhere’. Her advice for those with a story inside but who stall to start is to just ‘sit down and begin’.

“Humans are natural storytellers and many people have an urge to tell their stories and writers are just people that set aside some time to do just that. One word follows another… it doesn't have to be pretty but you can't do anything with a blank page.”

 

Already feeling like a winner, Jacquie McRae and her second novel ‘The Liminal Space’ are sitting pretty on a NZ Booklovers award shortlist. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

 

“Humans are natural storytellers and many people have an urge to tell their stories and writers are just people that set aside some time to do just that.

– Jacquie McRae


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