Casey Murray (winner) and Jeremy Suisted (theological) both won the 2014 'Basil Sellers' New Zealand Young Writers $1000 Award. Casey Murray is based in Auckland and Jeremy Suisted in Cambridge (near Hamilton) with Casey two points ahead after 8 months determined by seven Panellists, having marked all the New Zealand young writers.
Presenting Casey Murray and Jeremy Suisted 'The Basil Sellers' was Well-Being Australia's Russell Modlin. This Press Service International (PSI) gala event was held at the Banora Point Baptist facilities on the Gold Coast on Saturday evening. As last year, with points so close, it was determined to award both these young writers the winner award, designating Jeremy with the 'Theological'.
Casey Murray was raised in Auckland, studied marketing at Sydney Uni, then returned to Auckland into a corporate marketing role and very recently moved into a beauty company marketing position (L'oreal – Professionnel), while Jeremy Suisted is doing a Masters degree with a $12,000 scholarship in Hamilton and an Innovation Consultant (www.creativate.co.nz) whose favourite words are 'vendetta', 'rapscallion' and 'serendipity'.
The Panellists highlighted these articles by Casey as the 'best of the year':
Because I'm happy ..... kind of
The Panellists highlighted these articles by Jeremy as the 'best of the year':
A Dirty Glory (Or How I failed At Lighting Weights)
Death, Dylan Thomas and a Cat named Oscar
Leadership roles
Both Casey Murray and Jeremy Suisted are members of the New Zealand Young Writer Leadership Group. Casey represents New Zealand young writers to Well-Being Australia and Jeremy is a regular speaker at youth camps, youth services and churches throughout New Zealand.
As an aside, the New Zealand young writer leadership group met on Friday 4 April in Wellington and again on the Gold Coast on Friday 12 September with the Australian young writer leadership group.
The 2014 New Zealand Panellists
Rt Rev Brian Carrell
Liz Hay
Major Christina Tyson
Peter Grace
Vic Matthews
Dr Deidre Tronson
David Chang – Christian Today
The Press Service International young writer program is a ministry of Well-Being Australia which has young writers from around Australia, New Zealand, England, Canada, USA, Mozambique, Middle East, China, Korea, Thailand and the West Indies.
Casey Murray and Jeremy Suisted were presented their Awards by Well-Being Australia's Russell Modlin from the Sunshine Coast who is the WBA young writer representative on its national board. Russell and Belinda Modlin and their three sons served as missionaries for four years in central Australia before returning to the Sunshine Coast school teaching.
New Zealand Most Improved
Matt Browning won the 2014 Most Improved New Zealand Young Writer award. Matt is from Rotorua.
New Zealand Best Article Awards
Brad Mills -
Getting cynical about signs from God
Stepping out of the boat
Casey Murray -
Sex Isn't My Fault
Because I'm happy kind of
Jeremy Suisted -
A dirty glory (How I failed at weights)
Death, Dylan, Thomas, a cat named Oscar
Love, Lions and Virtual Love
Tash McGill -
We need to get better at dying
Stop trying to solve the big problems
The way you talk to young people
Sophia Sinclair -
Secret, Sharing web sites
Motherhood and more
Ginger
Matt Browning -
Don't read this if you can't handle a mystery
The young writer conference
New Zealander's featured prominently in conference presentations, Sophia Sinclair once again presented the same Wellington NZ young writer conference workshop for this conference (more on Thursday) and Jeremy Suisted presented the Young Writer Leadership discussions from the previous evening to the conference delegates.
A welcome component of the young writer conference was Jared Diprose from Auckland who presented his story of developing his art business to the point where he has now signed a lease on a warehouse.
The faux par of the entire young writers conference wasn't me this time, but our erstwhile Well-Being Australia board member Russell Modlin, the MC for the young writer awards evening. Russell read out the names of the young writers and the title of their article/s deemed their best for 2014 as they came forward for their certificate and 'best writer' coffee mug.
In this instance the time-gap left by Russell Modlin between the two titles was extremely minimal (less than a breath) as he read out Auckland's Casey Murray's best article two "best article" titles (see above list) and it bought the house down - you too can enjoy the humour: - "Sex Isn't My Fault, Because I'm happy kind of".
Both these articles received a huge readership in Christian Today.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at
