The short lists for the OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS have just been announced. The winners will be announced on 15 May.
Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize: The New Animals by Pip Adam (VUP);Salt Picnic by Patrick Evans (VUP); Sodden Downstream by Brannavan Gnanalingam (Lawrence & Gibson); Baby by Annaleese Jochems (VUP). 
Poetry: Anchor Stone by Tony Beyer (Cold Hub Press); Night Horse by Elizabeth Smither (AUP); Rāwāhi by Briar Wood (Anahera Press); The Yield by Sue Wootton (Otago UP). 
Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction: Dancing with the King: The rise and fall of the King Country, 1864-1885 by Michael Belgrave (AUP); Tears of Rangi: Experiments across worlds by Anne Salmond (AUP); Drawn Out: A seriously funny memoir by Tom Scott (Allen & Unwin); Driving to Trebrinka: A long search for a lost father by Diana Wichtel (Awa Press). 
Illustrated Non-Fiction: Tuai: A traveller in two worlds by Alison Jones and Kuni Kaa Jenkins (Bridget Williams Books); Tōtara: A natural and cultural history by Philip Simpson (AUP); Gordon Walters: New vision by Zara Stanhope et al (Auckland Art Gallery & Dunedin Public Art Gallery); The Face of Nature: An environmental history of the Otago Peninsula by Jonathan West (Otago UP).