In October 2019 I sent a manuscript to be considered for the Storylines Joy Cowley Award. It felt like daring to me: audacity double-spaced in Times New Roman, and slipped into a courier bag.
If nothing came of it, I thought, then at least I had given my little story a chance.
Amid the tumult of 2020, as we found ourselves navigating daily life in entirely new ways, collectively thinking on our feet and paring everything back to basics, my manuscript won the award.
What began as a 620-word rhyming story is now being developed by Scholastic New Zealand into a colourful picture book for preschoolers and young schoolchildren. It is titled Grandpa Versus Swing, and it will be launched on August 1 this year.
Life continues in strange new ways, and I continue to write. In one of these coming weeks or months I hope to once again gather all of my daring onto a couple of A4 pages, double-spaced in Times New Roman, and slip it into an envelope.
Tania Sickling 