AI covers push two authors out of top literary prize

Elizabeth Smither’s Angel Train and Stephanie Johnson’s Obligate Carnivore had been entered for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, a $65,000 award within the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Both authors have previously won Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, making the ruling particularly notable.

Concerns over AI first surfaced when a bookseller flagged unusual design elements to award organisers. The New Zealand Book Awards Trust, which oversees the competition, asked publisher Quentin Wilson Publishing to verify the suspicion.

Quentin Wilson later confirmed that AI had been used. He described the outcome as heartbreaking for the professional designers who worked on the titles and said the incident had caused genuine distress among the production team.

Author reacts

Stephanie Johnson said writers typically have little involvement in jacket design, although she had offered a lighthearted idea of a wicked looking cat with fake teeth. Johnson acknowledged the industry-wide debate around artificial intelligence and understood why the trust wanted to set boundaries. Still, she felt the literary work itself should not be discounted because of how a fictional cover was produced.

New AI rules

This year marks the first enforcement of AI restrictions across the awards. Entry documents stated that books would be judged as complete works, including their exterior design, and that any title containing AI-generated artwork or text would not be eligible. Quentin Wilson noted that the disputed covers were produced months before these guidelines were published.

According to him, major rule changes are usually signalled up to a year in advance, and clearer, more nuanced criteria could have been developed with earlier notice. He argued that the situation underscores the need for well-defined standards as authors and designers already rely on widely used digital tools such as Photoshop and Grammarly.

Nicola Legat, chair of the New Zealand Book Awards Trust, said the rules reflect sector wide consultation and aim to protect creative and copyright interests. She stressed that the trust did not take lightly the decision to exclude the latest works of two of the country’s most respected writers. Even so, she said the criteria must apply to all entrants in order to remain fair.

Legat added that the trust may revisit the AI criteria as practices evolve.

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai won Nobel Prize in Literature.