The Prize in Modern Letters
The Prize in Modern Letters, worth $65,000, is the world’s largest literary prize for an emerging writer. It is run under the auspices of the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Victoria University.
The prize is awarded biennially, and is designed to acknowledge and advance the work of emerging writers from or based in New Zealand. More generally, it is a major vote of confidence in the work of New Zealand’s writers.
Glenn Schaeffer, the American literary activist who founded the IIML in 2001, personally funds the prize. As well as highlighting the achievement and potential of major new writers, the prize - like the IIML - will significantly enhance awareness of New Zealand literature in the US and internationally.
Victoria University professor, Bill Manhire, co-ordinates the shortlisting process in New Zealand and final selection is made by a panel of US writers. Works by candidates submitted for the prize will be lodged in the Institute’s American and New Zealand headquarters' libraries.
The inaugural Prize in Modern Letters was awarded to Catherine Chidgey in 2002. The second was awarded to poet Glenn Colquhoun in 2004.
Information about the nominating process for the Prize in Modern Letters is available from the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. Alternatively, visit the website: www.vuw.ac.nz/modernletters
Mr Glenn Schaeffer is a US business leader and philanthropist who has strong affection for New Zealand, and a home in Nelson which he visits regularly. He is a lover of books and contemporary writing and has a commitment to supporting writers internationally, as well as to fostering the development of emerging writers. "The global language of the global village is literature, and no culture of freedom exists without it."
In the 1970s he completed a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction at the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop. Before this, Mr Schaeffer earned a BA summa cum laude and then a Master of Arts in Literature from the University of California (Irvine), where he was elected the university's youngest Phi Beta Kappa Scholar and was named one of Irvine's "Top 30 Distinguished Graduates".
Mr Schaeffer went on to follow a highly successful business career. He is now President and Chief Financial Officer of the Las-Vegas based Mandalay Resort Group, one of America’s top leisure and entertainment companies, owning some 27,000 hotel rooms. His company is responsible for developing the largest integrated resort complex in the world, The Mandalay Mile on the Las Vegas Strip. Its centrepiece resort, Mandalay Bay, was host to the recent David Tua fight, for which Mr Schaeffer was site promoter.
Glenn Schaeffer is the founder and primary benefactor of the International Institute of Modern Letters. In 2000 he established Las Vegas as the first US "City of Asylum", in association with the International Parliament of Writers. This project involves an annual fellowship for an oppressed writer who has had to flee his or her homeland.
He has also endowed a US$2,000,000 Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Nevada (Las Vegas), whose first holder is the Nigerian writer and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka.
In 2003 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Victoria University of Wellington.
