The New Zealand Book Awards Trust has revealed the 12 judges who will decide the country's most prestigious literary honours next year, bringing together novelists, poets, historians, curators and broadcasters across four judging panels for the 2027 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Fiction: The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize
Judging the $65,000 fiction prize, one of the richest literary awards in the country, will be a panel with genuinely different vantage points on New Zealand storytelling.
- Millie Blackwell (convenor), proprietor of Mrs Blackwell's Village Bookshop in Greytown, bringing a bookseller's ground-level view of what readers actually connect with
- Linda Burgess, novelist and reviewer whose work appears in The Spinoff and Newsroom, with a new novel of her own due out in March 2027
- Shilo Kino (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Te Ata), award-winning author currently teaching writing in China, whose own novel All That We Know was longlisted for the award in 2025
Notably, the panel will be joined by an international judge to help decide the final winner from their shortlist of four, a structure that brings outside perspective into what is otherwise a distinctly local judging process.
Poetry: The Mary and Peter Biggs Award
The poetry panel draws together three writers working in quite different styles and traditions.
- Josiah Morgan (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Maniapoto; convenor), an actor, writer and experimental artist based in Christchurch
- Dame Fiona Kidman, a novelist, poet and memoirist with 38 published books to her name
- Mikaela Nyman, a poet and translator originally from Finland's Åland Islands, now based in Taranaki
General Non-Fiction
This panel leans heavily on academic and journalistic expertise.
- Neill Atkinson (convenor), Chief Historian at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, overseeing content for Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand
- Susana Lei'ataua, RNZ National broadcaster and founder of LAKA, a Pacific arts and culture organisation in Onehunga
- Thomas McLean, Professor of English at the University of Otago, whose writing on New Zealand art and literature also appears in international outlets
BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Rounding out the panels is a group with strong ties to museums, curation and visual arts.
- Claire Regnault (convenor), a dress historian and curator who previously won this same award in 2022 for her own book
- Spencer Lilley (Te Ātiawa, Muaūpoko, Ngāpuhi), an academic specialising in Māori and Indigenous library and information science
- Emma Ng, writer and Editorial Director of Satellites, an online forum supporting Asian arts practice in New Zealand
Why the Judging Panels Matter
New Zealand Book Awards Trust chair Nicola Legat said this year's panels bring a genuine depth of literary knowledge to what promises to be a demanding judging process.
"Judging this year's entries will be no easy task," Legat said. "Publishers in Aotearoa continue to raise the bar for quality and diversity, so we're expecting some lively and robust discussions around the judging table."
Key Dates for the 2027 Awards
For anyone tracking the process, or planning to submit a book for consideration, here's how the timeline unfolds:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Now – 15 October 2026 | Second tranche entries open (books published 1 Sept – 31 Dec 2026) |
| 28 January 2027 | Category longlists announced |
| 3 March 2027 | Shortlist of 16 books announced |
| 12 May 2027 | Finalists and winners celebrated at the Auckland Writers Festival |
A Long History
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards represent the country's premier literary honours, tracing their origins back to 1968, when they began life as the Wattie Book Awards. Over the decades, the awards have gone through several name changes, including the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the New Zealand Post Book Awards, before settling into their current form.
Beyond the four main categories, judges also have discretion to award Te Mūrau o te Tuhi, a dedicated Māori Language Award, alongside four separate Best First Book Awards recognising first-time authors.
Why This Announcement Matters
For New Zealand's publishing industry, judging panel announcements like this one offer an early signal of the lens through which this year's books will be assessed. With judges spanning independent bookselling, academia, broadcasting, Pacific arts leadership, and Māori and Indigenous scholarship, this year's panels reflect a deliberate effort to bring genuinely diverse perspectives to bear on what gets recognised as the best of New Zealand writing and publishing in 2027.
This article is based on a media release issued by the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa.
