The Lilian Ida Smith Award also known as the NZSA Lilian Ida Smith Award is a New Zealand literary award from the New Zealand Society of Authors.
The award is named after Lilian Ida Smith, a music teacher from Whanganui.
She granted the New Zealand Society of Authors funds to ‘assist people aged 35 yrs and over to embark upon or further a literary career’.
[1] From 1986–1990 the award consisted of three categories, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, with each recipient awarded $1000.
From 1992 the award became biennial award with a prize fund of $3000 for a project in any genre,[2] while after 2017 it was awarded every three years and from 2024 every four years.