Wanaka writer Annabel Wilson has won the inaugural AAWP/UWRF Emerging Writers' Prize, awarded by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF).

The 2016 theme was 'Tat Tvam Asi', a Hindu concept meaning 'I am you, you are me'.

Annabel won for her prose poem ‘Quire’, which she described as "25 vignettes which 'sing out' to each other.” Quire is an old fashioned book-binding term, but it also means to sing in unison, and is the front part of the church where singers perform together - probably, Annabel said, the basis for the modern term "choir”.

"They are snapshots based on observations and journal entries centred on time I spent in Bali,” she said, adding the "Quire’ pieces were developed further during a period when she was working towards her Masters In Creative Writing through Massey University.

The work is a thoughtful, meditative and humourous mix, some of it beautifully precise: "Two cups on the doorstep. A red-beaked plant drapes like a Christmas bauble above us, velvety to touch. We sit here every morning, sip sweet tea. A sooty butterfly swoops over your shoulder.” And some of it whimsical: "Boys on the beach selling Bintang from chilly bins ask where is your husband? Where you go next? Sunset turns everything copper. I buy a towel that says Toughen Up Princess and a floaty dress.”

One of the judges, associate professor Dominique Hecq, gave the following feedback on Annabel’s entry: "‘Quire’ is compelling and haunting. It is also playful and linguistically inventive. With its cool tone and striking imagery, this work seems to me unostentatiously individual and ambitious - fastidious but also marked by unexpected images and turns. ‘Quire’ takes no shortcuts; it works always subtly and with its own particular combination of wryness and lyricism.”

Previously an English and Media Studies teacher at Mount Aspiring College, Annabel is spending this year based in Wellington, where she has been writing full time as well as developing a feature-length play entitled 'No Science To Goodbye' with director Anna Shaw, also a former MAC teacher.

Annabel’s prize includes a ticket to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, accommodation for the duration of the festival and $500 towards economy airfares. Her work will also be published in an upcoming issue of Meniscus Literary Journal, and she has been invited to present her work at the annual AAWP conference in Canberra in November.

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