It seems fitting that CK Stead, the winner of the first Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, should love the short story. Most people know Karl Stead as 'New Zealand’s first man of letters' — a novelist, poet and critic who has gained international acclaim while remaining rooted in his home country — but he has composed in the abbreviated form all his writing life. It is a genre, he says, that offers unique opportunities. – from “CK Stead: Unfussy Talker and Award Winning Author,” by Ed Caesar, The Times