Senior writers

Photo - Josh Robbie Internationals senior writer 2020 Basil Sellers Award

2021 saw numerous changes to the Press Service International ‘senior writers’ and this article spells them out.

Initially the senior writers came about within the young writer ministry when a number of the panellists who marked them for the annual awards spoke up wanting to encourage the young writers by writing columns of their own.

This made a great deal of sense, but we did not want to become overwhelmed with older faces when our focus was on young writers. To counter this anomaly we restricted the senior writer ranks to those within the system serving the young writers as coordinastors, editors or panellists.

The initial list were such people as – illustrations

Panellists

Gavin Lawrie - a retired barrister and Aust panellist

Liz Hay - a retired professional editor and NZ panellist

Vic Matthews - a theologian and Internationals panellist

Coordinators/Editors

Russell Modlin - a teacher and young writer coordinator

Rebecca Moore - a music teacher and young writer editor

Aira Chilcott - a ret teacher and young writer editor

Photo - Phil Hall Senior Writer Sport Theology Award

Phase 2 of senior writers

The situation arose where we had those a bit long in the tooth in the Over 31s and they were moved into senior writers.

The pattern was becoming mandated

18-30s - young writers

Over 31s

Those well and truly over 31

The philosophy became the rule - start in the young writers 18-30. Move into the Over 31s. Then gradually move into Seniors.

Phase 3 of senior writers

The next phase of senior writers occurred early in 2021 when the editor of Christian Today sought to maintain a younger aspect to our columns. In effect this meant not incorporating any additional older faces as senior writer columnists but to bring the more mature Over 31s through to senior writers.

This created another issue that Aira Chiclott raised – that these Over 31 young writers bought forward into senior writers would be excluded from the annual Awards.

This was rectified by adding a further group to the Awards – what we referred to as Junior Senior Writers