$10,000 Janet Frame prize for Kiwi ex-pat

Poet, printer and editor Alan Loney (pictured right) has been named as the 2011 recipient of a Janet Frame Literary Trust Award worth $10,000.

Alan Loney is a New Zealander who has lived in Melbourne, Australia in recent years, although retaining strong literary ties on both sides of the Tasman.

Born in 1940, Loney’s first book of poetry was published in 1971. He won a NZ Book Award for his 1976 collection dear Mondrian. US poet Robert Creeley said of the collection Sidetracks: Notebooks 1976-1991, that “Alan Loney’s work has always been at the cutting edge of world literature. His mastery has become a resource for us all.”

Alongside an influential career as printer, editor and publisher, Loney has an extensive bibliography of his own poetry and prose published in many countries.

He has four titles forthcoming in 2011: Anne of the Iron Door (a novella from Black Pepper Press, Melbourne) as well as three new poetry volumes with Rubicon Press (Canada), Ninja Press (California) and Chax Press (Arizona). The Falling: A Memoir was released by Auckland University Press in 2001.

Chair of the Janet Frame Literary Trust Pamela Gordon said, ‘These awards are made possible by Janet Frame’s generous bequest of an endowment fund, and they’re offered in her spirit of wanting to give encouragement and financial support to established writers of proven merit, who may be overdue for some recognition or reward.”

Alan Loney declared himself “astonished, delighted, honoured and somewhat moved” to receive the prize, and he also said “how nourishing the news about the Award is, and how confirming it seems for such a life’s work that I have had”.