BNZ Literary Awards 2013
Feature Title
A Home in the Howling Wilderness: Settlers and the Environment in Southern New Zealand
by Peter Holland
During the nineteenth century European settlers transformed New Zealand's South Island. Peter Holland... 
Feature Author
Sir Edmund Hillary was a mountaineer and explorer. He was the first man to scale Mount Everest, a feat...
#fridayshorts
We really hang out for Fridays at the Book Council. Okay, it's nice that it's the end of the week and all, but it's #fridayshorts that really excites us. Every week we get to read 20-odd wild, wacky and creative takes on how to use 6 simple words, from writers, poets and tall tale tellers from all over NZ. Each tweet is a story, and the variety astounds!
Here are a few of our favourites, and the words that inspired them:
report, energy, aggrieved, bike, fellowship, sale
Elrond's options report has the Fellowship quite aggrieved. The ring's energy for sale? No way. Bike to Mordor? Is he crazy? @cphowe
cargo, obstreporous, quirk, squish, jolly, shape
Buttocks squished to near human form by tight cargo pants, her quirky, jolly high-heeled totter belied an obstreperous persona @malcolmgunn
catastrophe, rockstar, palm, 1.45am, flap, bison
1.45am. Palms on the rockstar's bison tattoo, I gently push him off the ledge. His shirt flaps as he falls. catastrophe averted. @librarykris
pun, knight, nuptial, patent, ant, jam
An amorous glamorous knight by night, by day he put ants in pants & set puns on the run in the patented pre-nuptials he penned. @margolanagan
calamitous, scalp, canny, relax, fief, skip
The canny lord's heart gave a skip for joy. With no calamity in his fiefdom, he could now relax and await his scalp massage. @IreneNZ
austerity, dentist, snip, tangle, stride, think
Austerity tip: if you don't think you can pay the dentist, it's a snip to tangle him in floss and stride off. @first_lines
cough, mist, shock, curious, map, hospitality
The bacterial mist of his cough covered me. I stood in shock, map in hand. Curious, I enquired about his idea of hospitality. @MaryFrances110
We began the #fridayshorts hashtag in July 2010, with the advent of our twitter account and nothing better to do on a Friday. The rules are simple - take the six words, put them in a 140-character tweet, and hope to win the kudos at the end of it. No prizes, but loads of satisfaction for wordsmiths.
Join us on twitter on a Friday, at @nzbookcouncil, and #fridayshorts your day away.
