Showing all posts about Australian literature
2022 ABA Booksellers Choice Awards shortlist
28 April 2022
Eighteen titles across three categories, adult fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books, have been named on the 2022 ABA Booksellers Choice Awards shortlist. After Story by Larissa Behrendt, Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy, and Love & Virtue by Diana Reid, are among contenders for the fiction prize. Winners will be announced on Sunday 12 June 2022.
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Australian literature, literary awards
The 2022 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers
26 April 2022
Entries are open until Friday 8 July for the 2022 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers. Writers, who are unpublished, need only submit the first three chapters of their manuscript at this stage, though they must intend to complete it.
This is the eighth year of the prestigious Richell Prize and once again entries are open to unpublished writers of adult fiction and adult narrative non-fiction. Writers do not need to have a full manuscript at the time of submission, though they must intend to complete one. The Prize will be judged on the first three chapters of the submitted work, along with a synopsis outlining the direction of the proposed work and detail about how the author’s writing career would benefit from winning the Prize.
The Richell Prize was established in 2015 in memory of Matt Richell, the former CEO of the Australian operation of Hachette Publishing, who died in 2014. The longlist for the prize will be published on Monday 5 September 2022.
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Australian literature, awards, Richell Prize
2022 Newcastle Short Story Award
21 April 2022
Last call for entries for the 2022 Newcastle Short Story Award, which close this Monday, 25 April. Works of no more than two thousand words by Australian citizens or permanent residents aged eighteen or over, are eligible for inclusion.
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Sisters in Crime celebrate thirty years in Australia
20 April 2022
The Australian chapter of Sisters in Crime — an international networking association for women who write crime and mystery novels — celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in Melbourne, on Saturday 23 April 2022. When the group first formed in the inner Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, only five crime titles written by Australian women were published in 1991.
The Davitt Awards — established by the Melbourne chapter in 2001, which recognises the work of Australian women crime writers — is perhaps the best gauge of how much has changed in three decades. One hundred and sixty titles have been nominated for the 2022 prize, sixty of which are debut works.
The Davitts were named after English born Australian author Ellen Davitt, who wrote Force and Fraud: A Tale of the Bush in 1865, believed to be the first crime title published by an Australian woman. Winners of the Davitts will be announced later this year, in August or September.
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Nicholas Wasiliev speaks to Stella Prize shortlist writers
19 April 2022
Sydney based author and podcaster Nicholas Wasiliev, and host of Booktopia’s podcast, Tell Me What To Read, speaks to Evelyn Araluen, Lee Lai, Eunice Andrada, Jennifer Down, and Anwen Crawford, who are five of the six authors to have work shortlisted for the 2022 Stella Prize.
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Australian literature, literary awards, Stella Prize
2022 Australian Book Design Awards shortlist
19 April 2022
The 2022 Australian Book Design Awards shortlist, which can be viewed here (PDF), was announced last week. The awards celebrate the best of Australian book design, and the winners will be named at a ceremony taking place at The Craft & Co in Melbourne, on Friday 3 June 2022.
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Australian literature, awards, design
Entries open for 2022 Queensland Literary Awards
12 April 2022
Entries are open for the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards until Friday 29 April 2022. A total of A$125,000 in prize money across eight categories is on offer. In addition, there are four development awards for unpublished manuscripts, and Queensland writers only, valued at A$62,000.
The Queensland Literary Awards showcase outstanding authors from across Australia, celebrating emerging and established authors across a range of genres. State Library of Queensland is proud to manage the awards in collaboration with sponsors, the literary community, and industry partners. On offer are eight national prizes for outstanding published books by Australian writers, illustrators and creators. This includes the $25,000 Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance which highlights a uniquely Queensland story.
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Government support for Australian writers declines
7 April 2022
The Australian federal budget was handed down last week, but there was little in it for writers. Funding for the arts sector is being reduced by almost twenty-percent, with the RISE Fund, which was established to support the sector during the pandemic, scheduled to be phased out.
Unlike the performing arts, which benefit from a dedicated funding stream inside the Australia Council, literature has enjoys very little federal support. In 2020-21, the Australia Council gave out just $4.7 million in grant funding to literature – 2.4% of the total funding pool last year. In contrast, the major performing arts organisations received $120 million.
The funding situation serves to draw attention to just how little writers earn. Sydney based author Charlotte Wood, speaking at a recent parliamentary hearing, set things out in pretty blunt terms:
Wood told a House of Representatives inquiry into Australia’s cultural sector that “writers themselves are in absolutely dire economic difficulty”. She cited figures that literary writers’ annual income from their books was just $4,000 a year.
Four thousand dollars a year? What is anyone meant to conclude from that? Writing is indeed poorly looked upon in Australia.
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Australian literature, writing
The 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist
5 April 2022
The 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist was announced today, and sees fifty-eight works of writing, spread across ten categories, vie for prize money worth $285,000:
- Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)
- Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction ($40,000)
- Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)
- Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)
- Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature ($30,000)
- Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)
- Indigenous Writers’ Prize, presented biennially ($30,000)
- UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000)
- Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)
- Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)
The Shut Ins by Katherine Brabon, TAKE CARE by Eunice Andrada, Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen, Coming of Age in the War on Terror by Randa Abdel-Fattah, After Story by Larissa Behrendt, and Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss, are among contenders for the prizes.
Winners will be named on Monday 16 May 2022, being the commencement of the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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Entries for the 2022 Banjo Prize are open
4 April 2022
The Banjo Prize gives Australian writers the opportunity to have their manuscript published, and entries for the 2022 Banjo Prize are open until Friday 27 May 2022.
Past recipients include journalist Tim Slee, winner of the inaugural prize in 2018 with Taking Tom Murray Home, and Sydney based Dinuka McKenzie in 2020 with The Torrent. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 6 September 2022.
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