Some remarkable things happened this year for the young writers.
NZ Sports Writer
Mhairi-Bronte Duncan joined the Kiwi young writing team as a sport writer – Mhairi-Bronte is a NZ Women’s Hurling representative.
New Internationals
With the help of Kacy Garvey in the West Indies a whole bunch more international young writers joined the young writers
Richelle Henry - West Indies
Victor Brown - West Indies
Akeel Henry - West Indies
Kerron Young - West Indies
Rose- Ann Durant - West Indies
Tamieka Dussard - Canada
Elizabeth Dunlop - West Indies
Anneque Bennett - West Indies
Victoria Richards - West Indies
Total – 9
Changing Weeks
The Week 5 Australian young writers were moved to Weeks 1 and 2 - the reason we needed Week 5 for additional young writers moving into Over 31s young writers
STORIES
Kiwi young writers and International young writers were invited to tell their Stories
To date
Kiwis
Matthew Thornton - Auckland
Rebecca Hoverd - Auckland
Rebecca Howan - Wellington
Jessica Knell - Auckland
Blake Gardiner - Auckland
Stephanie Yao - Auckland
Kate Tooke - Taranaki
Harrison Bellve - Wellington
Chanell Diaz - Blenheim
Total 9 - more coming
Internationals
Anna Waite - Camdodia - now Australia
Crystelda Naidoo - South Africa
Tamara Dickens - West Indies
Ashea West - West Indies - USA
Darren Salmon - West Indies
Dr Daniel Thomas - West Indies
Rume Kpadamrophe - Nigeria
Jhonelle Grant - West Indies
Rebecca Triplett - USA
Jason Lalone - USA
Total 10 - more to come
Annual conference
The annual young writer conference was held on the Gold Coast on 12 September – only Queenslanders could attend due to Covid 19.
Everyone else had access to ZOOM which Jesse Moore coordinated. Plenaries were conducted by David Chang on Zoom, Cartia Moore and Joseph Kolapudi while the afternoon sessions were small groups. To top it all off, Summer Moore presented her portrait painting of Dr Mark Tronson with the Gutenberg, to Mark.
Basil Sellers Award - 18-30 year winners for 2020
Australia - Cartia Moore
New Zealand - Caleb Haurua
Internationals - Darren Salmon
Panellists
The Panellists of all 7 separate award groups marked each young writer’s BEST article rather than marking every article for 6 months. This followed the model of the Australasian Religious Press Association (ARPA).
Thank you everyone - a great year.