Emma Neale, winner of the Ockhams 2025 Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry!

By Ōtepoti He Puna Auaha | Dunedin UNESCO City Of Literature | Posted: Thursday May 15, 2025

Massive heartfelt congratulations to our very own Emma Neale for winning the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry for 'Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit' (Otago University Press)

Here’s a few words from the judges:

‘Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit displays an exceptional ability to turn confessional anecdotes into quicksilvery flashes of insight. It’s a book about fibs and fables; and telling true stories which are perceived by others as tall stories; and the knock-on or flow-on effects of distrust, the scales dropping from one’s eyes. It’s about power and a sense of powerlessness; it’s about belief and the loss of belief, it’s about trust and disillusion; it’s about disenchantment with fairytales. It’s about compassion.’

Congratulations Emma and to all the other winners and shortlisted authors.

Read more here: Dunedin author wins top award for her poetry | Otago Daily Times Online News