Showing all posts about Australian literature
Kevin Rudd discusses The Avoidable War with Ben Doherty
9 May 2022
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd will be discussing his book The Avoidable War (published by Hachette Australia, March 2022) with Ben Doherty, the Sydney based international affairs reporter for The Guardian, at Gleebooks, on the evening of Thursday 12 May.
The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility. No other nations are so quick to offend and be offended. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily.
The 2022 Australian federal election campaign in full swing, and China’s rise, and the potential for conflict with the United States, are matters that have been in the spotlight. And while Australians may not be Rudd’s target readership, Daniel Flitton, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, suggests The Avoidable War is essential reading for us nonetheless:
Rudd hasn’t written this book for Australians and that is exactly why Australians should read it. This is not a political screed or point-scoring exercise in domestic battles. Sure, there are familiar Ruddisms expressed. The word “core” gets a particular workout to explain interests or principles. But the book amounts to a thoughtful and well-structured examination of the dynamics between the world’s greatest power and its greatest challenger, the consequences of which Australians cannot escape, but can seek to shape.
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Australian literature, Kevin Rudd
Simone Amelia Jordan on writing your first book
4 May 2022
Sydney based journalist and writer Simone Amelia Jordan, winner of the 2021 Richell Prize for emerging authors, on overcoming your sense of imposter syndrome, and getting on with writing your first book.
…it’s an absolute life goal for writers and non-writers alike, to get these stories out of us and into the world. I’m a journalist by trade, so writing creative non-fiction has been a challenge. But I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone to learn and be the best I can be.
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Australian literature, Richell Prize, Simone Amelia Jordan
2022 Best Young Australian Novelists awards
2 May 2022
Ella Baxter, Michael Burrows, and Diana Reid, have been named winners of the Sydney Morning Herald’s 2022 Best Young Australian Novelists awards.
Judges Thuy On, Gretchen Shirm and SMH Spectrum editor Melanie Kembrey said the three novels ‘stood out from the many entrants for their strong narrative voices, memorable characters and sharp writing — they’ll make you laugh, cry and keep thinking long after you’ve turned the final page’.
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Australian literature, literary awards
The 2022 Brisbane Writers Festival
2 May 2022
The 2022 Brisbane Writers Festival opens tomorrow, Tuesday 3 May 2022, and concludes on Sunday 8 May. This is the festival’s sixtieth event, and if the program is anything to go by, it looks like there is something for everyone.
In this special year of the sixtieth celebration of the Brisbane Writers Festival, we bring a world of beautiful, wise, strong and urgent voices from across the Pacific Ocean and from around the world to Meanjin/Brisbane.
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Australian literature, festivals
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen wins the 2022 Stella Prize
28 April 2022
Dropbear, the debut collection of poetry by Melbourne based Australian writer Evelyn Araluen, has been named winner of the 2022 Stella Prize.
Melissa Lucashenko, chair of the 2022 Stella Prize judges, says Dropbear “announces the arrival of a stunning new talent to Australian literature.”
“When you read Evelyn Araluen’s Dropbear you’ll be taken on a wild ride. Like the namesake of its title, this collection is simultaneously comical and dangerous. If you live here and don’t acquire the necessary local knowledge, the drop bear might definitely getcha! But for those initiated in its mysteries, the drop bear is a playful beast, a prank, a riddle, a challenge and a game. Dropbear is remarkably assured for a debut poetry collection, and I think we can safely say it announces the arrival of a stunning new talent to Australian literature. Congratulations, Evelyn.”
At twenty-nine, Araluen is the youngest recipient of the literary prize that celebrates the writing of Australian women, and says she may never have become a poet had she not studied her great-grandfather’s language:
Araluen, a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation born in Dharug Country and now based in Naarm/Melbourne, began writing poetry while she was studying her great-grandfather’s language at TAFE, becoming attuned to poetic techniques like fragmentation and different sentence structures. “I honestly don’t think I would have become a poet if I hadn’t started learning that language,” she told ABC Arts in 2021.
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Australian literature, Evelyn Araluen, literary awards, Stella Prize
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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