Joy Cowley - Honours and Awards

Honours and Awards

Cowley was awarded a 1990 Commemoration Medal for services to New Zealand, and in 1992 she was awarded an OBE for services to children's literature. The following year she was granted an honorary doctorate (D.Litt) from Massey University, and was awarded the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal. In the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Cowley was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM) for services to children's literature.

In 1993, Cowley became the third recipient of the Margaret Mahy Award, whose winners present and publish a lecture concerning children's literature or literacy. Cowley's lecture was titled Influences. The award is presented by the Storylines Childrens Literature Charitable Trust, who established the Joy Cowley Award in 2002, in recognition of the "exceptional contribution Joy Cowley makes to both children’s literature and literacy in New Zealand and internationally". In 2004, she became a patron of the Storylines Childrens Literature Foundation, and she is one of Storylines' trustees. At least one of her books has been on the Storylines Notable Books List every year since it was established in 2000, other than 2009 and 2011 (in 2012 she was given a "special mention").

In 2002, she was awarded the Roberta Long Medal, presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham for culturally diverse children's literature. In 2004, she was awarded the A. W. Reed Award for Contribution to New Zealand Literature, and in 2010, she won the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in the Fiction category.

Cowley has won the overall Book of the Year award three times at the various incarnations of the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards: first for The Silent One in 1982; then for Hunter in 2006; and finally for Snake and Lizard in 2008. The latter two books were entered into the Junior Fiction category, in which she also won the category award for her books Ticket to the Sky Dance in 1998, Starbright and the Dream in 1999, and Shadrach Girl in 2001. Cowley also won the Children's Choice award in this category for Friends: Snake and Lizard in 2010. She won the now defunct Fiction category in 1992 for Bow Down Shadrach, and the Picture Book category in 2002 for Brodie. An additional five of her books have been short-listed as finalists in the Picture Book category at the awards, and an additional three in the Junior Fiction category.

Cowley's book The Video Shop Sparrow was included in the 2000 White Ravens List, administered by the International Youth Library, and five of her books have been finalists for the Esther Glen Award from 1995 to 2010. She won Best Script Television Drama at the 1994 TV Guide Television Awards for Mother Tongue, a 52 minute film shot in 1992, and set in 1953, about an 18 year old couple who fall in love — though the woman (played by Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) is Catholic, and the man (played by Craig Parker) is Jewish.