Jessica Le Bas is a Nelson-based poet from New Zealand.
Jessica Le Bas | |
|---|---|
| [[File:Jessica Le Bas at the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize ceremony at Auckland Writers Festival 2019, in Auckland, New Zealand.jpg|frameless|Le Bas at the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize ceremony at Auckland Writers Festival 2019, in Auckland, New Zealand]] Le Bas at the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize ceremony at Auckland Writers Festival 2019, in Auckland, New Zealand | |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | University of Auckland |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Notable works | Incognito, Walking to Africa |
| Notable awards | NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry, Sarah Broom Poetry Prize 2019 |
Le Bas received her MA(Hons) from the University of Auckland.[1]
During the Balkan Wars, Le Bas worked for the United Nations as a Training Consultant for UNPROFOR. She has worked at the Beehive in Wellington as Private Secretary to a government Minister. She took Owen Marshall’s Fiction Writing Course at Aoraki and after receiving a grant from Creative New Zealand.[1]
Le Bas has published two collections of poetry, Incognito in 2007,[2] and Walking to Africa in 2009.[3] In 2010, she published her first children's book, Staying Home: My True Diary of Survival, under the pseudonym ‘Jesse O’.[4] In 2021 the novel was re-released by Penguin Books New Zealand as Locked Down, and was illustrated by Toby Morris.[5] Le Bas and her novel featured at the 2021 Auckland Writers' Festival as part of the Schools' Programme.[6]
Poems by Le Bas have appeared in the Best New Zealand Poems series in 2007.[7] She has also published in a number of literary journals including Sport,[8] Blackmail Press,[9][10] and Trout.[11] She was featured in issue 32 of Poetry New Zealand.[12]
Incognito won the 2007 NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.[13]
In 2007, she received a New Zealand Mental Health Foundation Media Grant to write Walking to Africa, which was a finalist in the Ashton Wylie Book Awards.[1][14]
Le Bas has also won the New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, 2005 Bravado Poetry Competition,[12] and been shortlisted in the Landfall Essay Competition.[1][15]
In 2019, she won the 2019 Sarah Broom Poetry Prize.[16]