Author books Montana award

MARIA PRIESTLEY
It took more than 40 years - but, last night, Judy Siers' James Walter Chapman-Taylor odyssey ended with a spectacular finale.
The Napier author was named the winner of the biography category of this year's Montana NZ Book Awards at the Wellington Town Hall for her monumental work The Life and Times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor. .
"It was extremely thrilling and satisfying," she said this morning, after receiving a barrage of congratulatory calls from friends and relatives.
"It's wonderful to have my work acknowledged. It's such a prestigious award and I'm just thrilled."
Siers beat The Best Man Who Ever Served the Crown? A Life of Donald McLean by Ray Fargher and Waimarino County and Other Excursions by Martin Edmond to take the award.
Siers had "a fantastic time" at the gala dinner supported by her daughter and son-in-law who have - along with the rest of her family - "put up with me doing this all these years".
"It was a wonderful night. Lots of Montana wine," she said.
"I was relaxed up until just before it was announced. Then I was a bit nervous and I had to say a few words.
"I said about the book taking all the years and how it had never been done before.
"I couldn't go to the libraries because they didn't have the information, so I had to go to the people who knew Chapman-Taylor.
"Even though it took me so long, it's not a measure of how you start, it's a question of how you finish it."
Siers has followed leads about Chapman-Taylor since 1967 when she entered her first house by the architect on Burnell Avenue in Wellington.
"It's a story about a man who happened to be an architect, not a story about an architect.
"It's a story I felt compelled to tell."
This year's judges, Lynn Freeman, David Elworth and Tim Corbaliss, said of the book: "This is a big book in every way. Not only is it a splendid example of the publisher's craft, beautifully designed with copious photographs and architectural plans, but it is also a biography in the best possible sense, with the author combining meticulous research with a warm understanding of the personality and character of her subject."
Winners were chosen from more than 220 books. The winner in each category received a prize of $5000. This year's overall award winner was Auckland writer Charlotte Grimshaw for her book of short stories, Opportunity.
Siers, an ex-Wellington district councillor, moved to Napier with her husband, James, in 2005. The biography, a "labour of love" was published in 2007.
A second book is now underway, Not All Of Me Shall Die which will present events that have occurred since Chapman-Taylor's death.
Siers has also been asked to write a history of the Heretaunga Women's Rest Centre in Hastings, which will be her next project.