‘Stunned and shocked’: Ingrid Horrocks wins top prize at New Zealand’s Ockham awards for her fiction debut
Summary
Ingrid Horrocks won New Zealand’s top literary prize, the Jann Medlicott Acorn prize for fiction, for her first book, a collection of short stories called All Her Lives. The stories follow nine women from different times and places, exploring themes like politics, gender, and motherhood.Key Facts
- Ingrid Horrocks is a poet, essayist, and memoir writer based in Wellington, New Zealand.
- She won NZ$65,000 (about A$53,000 or £28,500) for the Jann Medlicott Acorn prize at the 2026 Ockham New Zealand book awards.
- All Her Lives is a debut short story collection covering different life stages and generations of women.
- It is only the fifth time a short story collection has won this top prize in the award’s 58-year history.
- The stories range in settings from rural New Zealand after World War I to Berlin and 1981 anti-apartheid protests.
- Other finalists for the prize included debut novelist Laura Vincent and previous two-time winner Catherine Chidgey.
- Horrocks said writing fiction helped her connect more deeply with her characters than nonfiction did.
- Several other debut authors and poets also won awards at the event, including former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for her nonfiction memoir.
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