2010 WriteMark |
Friday 3 September 2010 |
New Zealand Plain English Awards |
|
Duncan Sarkies
Playwright, screen writer, fiction writer, stand-up comic
Duncan Sarkies is best known as the co-writer, with his brother Robert Sarkies, of the hugely successful 1999 film Scarfies. Scarfies was shown at numerous international film festivals including Cannes and Sundance, and on its release in New Zealand quickly became one of the country's highest grossing local films.
Duncan’s plays are The Ceramic Camel (1993), Lovepuke (1993), Saving Grace (1994), Snooze (1997), Twelve (1997), Blue Vein (1997), Special (1997), and Bystander (1998). Lovepuke was published in Eleven Young Playwrights (1994). In 1994 he was awarded the Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Playwriting Award, and in 1995 Saving Grace won the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Best New Zealand Play. Duncan adapted Saving Grace into a film, released in 1997.
Duncan was awarded the 1998 Louis Johnson New Writers' Bursary. His first book is Stray Thoughts and Nose Bleeds (1999), a collection of prose pieces, only some of which fit the description of ‘short stories’. Others more closely resemble scripts for a stand-up comedy routine. All are characterised by an eccentric black humour, bizarre and poignant by turns, which can leave the reader (or audience) wondering whether the author is laughing with them or at them.
Sponsors
We would like to thank the following sponsors for their support in 2010.
