Laurence Fearnley & Paul Hersey
The Friends’ Committee is pleased to announce that the 2016 FOHC Award has been made to Laurence Fearnley and Paul Hersey to enable the completion of an anthology of New Zealand mountaineering writing between 1830 and 2015.
Laurence Fearnley is a full-time novelist and non-fiction writer. Her publications include Going Up is Easy, Reach, and The Hut Builder. In 2004 Laurence was awarded the Artists to Antarctica Fellowship and in 2007 the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago.
Paul Hersey is a full-time writer, photographer, filmmaker and mountaineer. He has written several books, including Our Mountains: Journeys to New Zealand’s Highest Places, based on his journeys to 15 major peaks in New Zealand.
They expect to commence their Hocken-based research this December, and expect one focus will be on the NZ Alpine Club collections. These naturally include much writing from members of the Club on mountaineering and mountains.
President of the Friends of the Hocken Collections, Marian Hobbs, said: “I’m so pleased in the Friends’ 25th anniversary year we are able to support people doing such original research using the Hocken Collections.”
Hocken Librarian Sharon Dell noted: “The work done with the support of this Award is a chance for New Zealanders to see richness of the Collections in relation to mountaineering throughout New Zealand, and especially in the southern alpine and fiord regions – they are significant to New Zealand, as well as the Otago and Southland regions.”
The Otago University Press’s Editorial Board “enthusiastically endorses” Laurence and Paul’s publishing proposal.
The Friends of the Hocken Collections Committee would also like to commend generally the very high calibre of applications, 17 of which were received.