The University of Auckland
The University of Auckland
11/11/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 11/10/2024 16:23
Top TV screenwriter wins creative writing prize
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Top TV screenwriter wins creative writing prize
11 November 2024
A dark comedy by successful screenwriter Gavin Strawhan has won the University of Auckland Phoenix Prize for this year's best Master of Creative Writing dissertation.
Phoenix Master of Creative Writing prizewinner Gavin Strawhan: feels vindicated for taking a risk with a late-career change to novel writing.
Experienced TV writer Gavin Strawhan, whose recent credits include five-part series Testify and true-life drama Black Hands, has won the University of Auckland Phoenix Prize for his comedy novel The Mother Project.
Funded by Master of Creative Writing (MCW) alumni, the $3,500 annual prize recognises a manuscript of high quality with strong potential to succeed commercially and aims to support it towards publication.
After switching his focus to fiction writing, Strawhan's first novel The Call was published earlier this year by Allen & Unwin after winning its annual Commercial Fiction Prize in 2023.
His MCW focus and second novel, The Mother Project, features an unreliable male narrator who writes for an English soap called 'Midlands Hospital'. This never-named man returns from London, ostensibly to spend time with his dying mother, but largely because he's broken up with his partner.
After a hallucinatory experience, he decides to uncover the mystery of his mother's 'ordinary' life, while strained relationships with siblings complicate his quest. The novel is described as "playing with memory, family, death, gender politics and the elusive nature of love".
External examiner, novelist and alumna Stephanie Johnson, calls it "a comic novel that is actually funny" and which has "an appealing layer of sophistication".
"It's a great pleasure to read, and the unnamed central character is thoughtful, informed, erudite, resilient and has a compelling sense of humour."
For me, winning is an acknowledgment that making a late-life career change wasn't a completely silly thing to do, and the prize money certainly helps.
Gavin Strawhan Phoenix Prize winner
Strawhan says he's delighted such a thing as the Phoenix prize exists at all.
"And I'm very grateful to Associate Professor Paula Morris and the alumni involved for their determination to promote and celebrate the Master of Creative Writing.
"For me, winning is an acknowledgment that making a late-life career change wasn't a completely silly thing to do, and the prize money certainly helps. It will hopefully give me a morale boost on those long nights of self doubt when I'm trying to turn my thesis into a completed novel!"
Paula Morris calls Strawhan "an accomplished writer challenging himself with a less 'expected' book than his debut, which was a gripping crime novel".
"The Mother Project manages to be witty, moving, surprising and stylish all at the same time."
Among Gavin Strawhan's extensive credits are top TV hits Go Girls and Nothing Trivial, Filthy Rich, which won best drama the 2019 Seoul International Drama Awards, quirky comedy-drama series Being Eve and futuristic thriller This Is Not My Life.
The Master of Creative Writing is a one-year, full- time course for writers working on a large-scale creative writing project: a novel, full-length work of creative nonfiction, a poetry or short story collection.
Offered within English and Drama in the Faculty of Arts, the programme is convened by award-winning fiction writer and essayist Paula Morris, with former Poet Laureate Professor Selina Tusitala Marsh co-supervising the poets in the programme.
Each week, writers meet for workshops and seminars, and guest lecturers include local and international writers from film, radio and theatre, as well as from the literary and publishing worlds.
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