Beethoven's "Sonata Number 30 in E Major" weaves its way through a novella that's won a Trans-Tasman literary award for its writer, Professor Bryan Walpert from Massey University. Bryan, who's also a poet, put the manuscript for Late Sonata on hold for four years while he worked on an academic text about poetry and mindfulness. But he completed the 40,000 word manuscript last year, and became just the third Kiwi to win the Australian publisher Brio Books' Viva La Novella award. Late Sonata tells the story of a husband and wife separated by Alzheimers, and by a pervasive secret that involves their dead son Michael. Lynn Freeman asks Bryan Walpert about the on-line course that started a literary journey. Late Sonata is published by Brio Books.