Inaugural “Andrew Mason Prize for Most Promising Editor” announced

A new prize to acknowledge and encourage editors starting out on their careers has been announced.

The inaugural Andrew Mason Prize for Most Promising Editor was awarded to Kylie Sutcliffe (pictured) at a Whitireia graduation ceremony late last week.

The prize is offered by the Mason Publishing Trust each year to a graduate of the Diploma in Publishing (Applied) at Whitireia – New Zealand’s leading publishing training course.

Kylie Sutcliffe was selected as the graduate in 2011 who showed the most promise and consistency across the full range of editorial skills, including communication, judgement and attention to detail. Sutcliffe has a background in library work and research, and interests in the visual arts, community-based projects and publishing for young people.

The prize remembers Andrew Mason, a well-known editor who died in 2009. Mason was a widely admired book editor who worked on some of New Zealand’s most significant publications, and literary editor of the New Zealand Listener from 1981 to 1991.

Announcing the prize, Rachel Lawson, publishing programme leader at Whitireia, said:

“I am enormously proud to have Andrew’s name associated with our publishing course. It’s wonderful that this prize gives us a way to publicly acknowledge the craft of editing – and the talented graduates of this course.”

Before he died, Mason set up a trust to promote publishing training. The AV and MJ Mason Trust has offered an annual scholarship through the publishing programme at Whitireia for the past two years. The new editing prize sits alongside that scholarship.

MJ Mason was Andrew Mason’s father, Malcolm Mason, who was also involved in publishing, as chair of Reed Publishing in the 1960s and 1970s and author of three books.
 
The scholarship and prize are administered by trustees Tim Mason (Andrew’s brother, a doctor and bookseller), Alistair Mason (his nephew) and Elizabeth Caffin (former director of Auckland University Press).

Media release supplied.