Paula Harris

Awards, Honours & Almosts

Winner
Live Canon Pamphlet Competition
Sectioning Herakles
2020

Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize (judge: Ilya Kaminsky)
you will dig me from the earth with your bare hands, in order to resurrect me
2018

Geometry | Open Book Poetry Competition (judges: Anna Livesey / Sophie van Waardenberg)
I eat men like air
2018

Lilian Ida Smith Award (NZ Society of Authors)
2017

Whitireia Poetry Award (judge: Cilla McQueen)
Pounamu
1995

Second Place
The London Magazine Poetry Prize (judges: Martha Sprackland, Zaffar Kunial and Chris Emery)
my failed life as a Swedish painter
2019

Second Runner-Up
Red Hen Press Nonfiction Award
the futility of my kisses, R.I.P.
2021

Honourable Mention
Neutrino Short-Short Prize (judge: jj peña)
when I was fucking a lot of men when I was 19 and 20 (and 18, and 21) I was fully aware that it was partly because I love sex and partly because – having grown up being told I am unlovable – I crave that feeling of being wanted, even for a few hours
2022

Highly Commended
Poetry NZ Poetry Prize (judge: Jo Emeney)
the first 146 minutes of knowing Rawiri
2020

Aoraki Poetry Award (judge: Gregory O’Brien)
love letter
2000

Australasian Poetry Competition (judge: Doris Leadbetter)
driving past the bay
1999

Short Listed
C&R Press Winter Soup Bowl 2020 Chapbook Award
The Sushi Chef’s Wife
2021

Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize (judge: Peter Sirr)
Moses may have parted the Red Sea but he’s got nothing on my father
2021

Aesthetica Creative Writing Award
Picasso invites me around for Sunday brunch and I find I cannot eat the fruit
2020

The Rialto Pamphlet Competition
The Sushi Chef’s Wife
2020

Verve Poetry Press Manuscript Call
Sectioning Herakles
The Sushi Chef’s Wife
Love Poems for Pessimists
2020

Kissing Dynamite Microchapbook Manuscript Call
pussybroken
2020

Bridport Prize (judge: Hollie McNish)
Moses may have parted the Red Sea but he’s got nothing on my father
2019

Geometry | Open Book Poetry Competition (judges: Anna Livesey / Sophie van Waardenberg)
my failed life as a Swedish painter
2019

Finalist
Gournay Prize / Mad Creek Books
the futility of my kisses, R.I.P.
2021

Tiran Burrell Chapbook Prize
i make men like you die sweetly
2021

Glass Poetry Chapbook Series
If Prince can’t fuck in heaven then there is no God
2021

Iowa Review Award in Poetry
2021

Ray Ventre Memorial Nonfiction Prize
tender lunges
2021

Animal Heart Press Chapbook Contest
i make men like you die sweetly
2021

Glass Poetry Chapbook Series
i make men like you die sweetly
2020

Ruth Stone Poetry Prize
2020

Porkbelly Press Chapbook Manuscript Call
Being in a Three-Way with Depression
2019

Commended
Munster Literature Centre Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition (preliminary judge: Patrick Cotter)
i make men like you die sweetly
2018

Semi-Finalist
Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes
Love Poems for Pessimists
2020

Sundress Publications Poetry Manuscript Call
Attack of the 50 Foot Wāhine
2020

Diode Editions Book Contest
Attack of the 50 Foot Wāhine
2020

Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize
Love Poems for Pessimists
2020

Sundress Publications Prose Manuscript Call
the futility of my kisses, R.I.P.
2020

92Y’s Discovery Poetry Contest (preliminary judges: Timothy Donnelly and Diana Marie Delgado)
2020

Boulevard Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers
The Lovely Harry, Philip Larkin and Me
2019

Joy Harjo Poetry Award
I thought we could’ve been happy for a little while longer, or: I message kuk-kuk kuk-kuk kuk-kuk and nobody answers
2019

Sundress Publications Poetry Manuscript Call
A thousand deliciously ill-advised ways to shorten your life
2019

Porkbelly Press Chapbook Manuscript Call
The Sushi Chef’s Wife
2019

Notable Mention
Cúirt New Writing Prize (judge: Jessica Traynor)
I am a bad house guest, even though I try to be a good guest by minimising the amount of space I take up
2020

Long Listed
No Contact Summer Poetry Prize
2021

Philip Booth Poetry Prize
we matched on Tinder and they seemed alright so we met in a bar and after a couple of hours I said are you God?
2021

Variant Literature Open Reading Call
pussybroken
2020

Emma Press Pamphlet Open Reading Call
The Sushi Chef’s Wife
2020

The Mairtín Crawford Award (judges: Moyra Donaldson and Naomi Foyle)
2020

Artlyst Art to Poetry Award (judges: Sue Hubbard, Kelly Grovier, Judith Palmer, Ben Rogers, Katrina Naomi and Helen Ivory)
If you’re going to play the Michael Parekowhai piano, don’t wear shoes
How to build a house and make it fall in love with you
2020

Palette Poetry Previously Published Poem Prize
2019

University of Canberra Vice Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize
having a picnic with Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich on an autumn day
2019

Show Me Yours Prize
I put on my fuck-jacket before I go out
I tweeted I was hungry the other night and someone ordered me uber eats; tonight I’m feeling pretty horny…
2019

The Rialto Pamphlet Competition
The Sushi Chef’s Wife
2019

Brotherton Poetry Prize
2019

Live Canon International Poetry Competition (judge: Liz Berry)
I end up on tinder due to Philip Larkin’s encouragement, which is remarkable given that he’s dead and I have suicidal ideation
2018

Poetry Book Society/Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition (judge: Carol Ann Duffy)
2018

Nominations
Best of the Net
New Delta Review
ode to all the scenes in Insecure where a man is going down on a woman
2022

Best of the Net
Cease, Cows
one summer, when I was five
2021

Residencies
Vermont Studio Center (USA)
2018

Paula Harris

About Paula

Paula Harris lives in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where she writes and sleeps a lot, because that's what depression makes you do. She won the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the 2017 Lilian Ida Smith Award, and was a semi-finalist for the 2020 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize. She was the recipient of a Vermont Studio Center writing residency in 2018.

Her poetry has been published in various journals, including Passages North, Barren, New Ohio Review, SWWIM, Gulf Coast, The Spinoff, Poetry New Zealand Yearbook and Aotearotica. Her essays have been published in The Sun, Passages North, The Spinoff and Headlands: New Stories of Anxiety (Victoria University Press).

She is extremely fond of dark chocolate, shoes and hoarding fabric.