Cloudstreet by Tim Winton wins number one in Top 100 Australian Books poll

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Cloudstreet by Tim Winton wins number one in Top 100 Australian Books poll

20 October 2026

Listeners of ABC Radio National recently voted Cloudstreet, the 1991 novel by Fremantle based Australian author Tim Winton, to the top spot in the Top 100 Australian Books poll.

Cloudstreet won a number of literary awards, including the 1992 Miles Franklin prize for Australian literature, and went on to be adapted for stage and television. It is quite the yarn:

After two separate catastrophes, two very different families leave the country for the bright lights of Perth. The Lambs are industrious, united and — until God seems to turn his back on their boy Fish — religious. The Pickleses are gamblers, boozers, fractious, and unlikely landlords.

Chance, hardship and the war force them to swallow their dignity and share a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet. Over the next twenty years they struggle and strive, laugh and curse, come apart and pull together under the same roof, and try as they can to make their lives.

Other titles among the top ten include The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden, and The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams.

Anne Carson awarded 2026 Literature Noble Prize

13 October 2026

Canadian poet and writer Anne Carson has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature.

I’m not the biggest fan of poetry, but poets, particularly Evelyn Araluen, have been doing well in some of the literary awards in recent years, which is certainly a boost for the craft.

A Piece of Red Cloth wins 2026 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction

18 September 2026

A Piece of Red Cloth, written by Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, and Djawa Burarrwanga, has been named winner of the fiction category in the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award for 2026.

Australian works of literature are recognised annually across six categories: Australian history, children’s, young adult, poetry, non-fiction, and fiction. A full list of recipients in all categories is here.

Fierceland, by Omar Musa, wins 2026 Miles Franklin Award

7 August 2026

Queanbeyan, NSW, based author and visual artist Omar Musa, has been named winner of the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award, for his 2025 novel Fierceland.

Fierceland is Musa’s second novel, and tells the story of two siblings returning to their home in Malaysian Borneo, for their father’s funeral, having lived overseas for years:

After many years abroad, Roz and Harun return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their father Yusuf — and to reckon with their inheritance. A renowned palm-oil baron during Malaysia’s economic rise, Yusuf built the family’s immense wealth by destroying huge tracts of rainforest. What his children know is that he was also responsible for the violent disappearance of a man who stood in his way.

Harun has become a successful tech entrepreneur in Los Angeles, Roz is an artist struggling to stay afloat in Sydney. Now they want to return something their father stole from the forests of their homeland. In their quest for redemption they grapple with the legacy of power and corruption, dreamers and exiles, thugs and zealots. Most dangerous of all, they are haunted — by the ghosts of colonialism, the ghosts of family, the ghosts of language, and the ghosts of the forest itself.

The Miles Franklin is awarded annually to Australian novels of the highest literary merit.

The Miles Franklin Literary Award 2026 longlist

25 May 2026

The longlist for the 2026 Miles Franklin award was published on Wednesday 20 May 2026, and includes the following ten titles:

Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts
Fierceland by Omar Musa
First Name Second Name by Steve MinOn
I Want Everything, Dominic Amerena
Little World by Josephine Rowe
My Heart at Evening by Konrad Muller
Salt Upon the Water by Lyn Dickens
Tenderfoot by Toni Jordan
You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson

Presented annually, the Miles Franklin award recognises Australian novels of the highest literary merit. The shortlist will be announced in June, next month, with the winner being named in August.

If you’re looking for reading ideas, literary award longlists make a good starting place, and are for me, a de-facto TBR list. I need more hours in the day to keep up with the resulting reading though.

The Serpent in the Grove, winner of the Commonwealth Prize, written with AI help?

23 May 2026

Congratulations to Trinidad and Tobago based writer Jamir Nazir for taking out the Commonwealth Short Story Prize this year, with his work, The Serpent in the Grove.

Since being named winner though, suggestions have emerged that the work is the product of an AI agent. When asked to assess the story, a number of other AI agents (how else would you check?) concluded The Serpent in the Grove was likely written with at least some AI assistance.

Prize organisers say they do not use tools to seek out the use of AI in submissions, considering the short story prize is for unpublished works. I see the logic in this argument, because anything parsed by an AI agent is probably only going to be regurgitated by the same agent later on, somewhere else.

The Commonwealth Prize operates on the principle of trust, say organisers. Here be another minefield of AI making that we need to tip toe our way through.

Cannon by Lee Lai, becomes first graphic novel to win Stellar Prize

14 May 2026

In winning the 2026 Stellar Prize, Montréal, Canada, based Australian cartoonist Lee Lai becomes the first graphic novelist to claim the Australian literary award, with Cannon.

Lai’s debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit, was shortlisted for the 2022 award, which went on to be won by Evelyn Araluen, with her poetry collection Dropbear.

Dropbear was the first work of poetry to take out the Stellar, and Araluen was in the running for the 2026 award, with The Rot, her follow up collection of poetry.

Wins for Araluen’s Dropbear, and Lai’s Cannon, in the Stellar, are both firsts, and represent a fascinating intertwining of Australian literary award history.

The longlist for the 2026 Stella Prize literary award

14 March 2026

Twelve titles have been included on the longlist for this year’s Stella Prize, the Australian literary award recognising the work of women and non-binary writers.

58 Facets: On violence and the law, by Marika Sosnowski
Ankami, by Debra Dank
Apron-Sorrow / Sovereign-Tea, by Natalie Harkin
Cannon, by Lee Lai
Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family, by Micaela Sahhar
Fireweather, by Miranda Darling
I Am Nannertgarrook, by Tasma Walton
KONTRA, by Eunice Andrada
Memorial Days, by Geraldine Brooks
The Rot, by Evelyn Araluen
Wait Here, by Lucy Nelson
Wild Dark Shore, by Charlotte McConaghy

Graphic novelist Lee Lai, whose 2021 title, Stone Fruit, was nominated for the 2022 prize, returns to the Stella this year. Poet Evelyn Araluen, as foreshadowed by yours truly, is also included, with her latest work The Rot.

The Stella shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 8 April 2026.

The Rot, by Evelyn Araluen, wins 2026 Victorian Prize for Literature

2 March 2026

Naarm/Melbourne based Australian poet Evelyn Araluen has won both the Victorian Prize for Literature, and Prize for Indigenous Writing, in this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, for her second collection of poetry, The Rot.

Araluen won the Stella Prize, one of Australia’s major literary awards in 2022, for her debut poetry collection, Dropbear. Her win in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards surely puts The Rot in good stead to be awarded the Stella Prize again this year.

That would be quite the accomplishment. We’ll find out soon if the possibility is on the cards, when the longlist for the 2026 Stella is announced next week, on Wednesday 11 March 2026.

Creative Australia opens applications for a National Poet Laureate

10 February 2026

Applications are open until 17 March 2026, for the role of Australian National Poet Laureate:

The National Poet Laureate is a three‑year appointment that recognises an outstanding Australian poet whose work and cultural contribution have shaped contemporary poetry and its readership. The Laureate serves as a respected public spokesperson and champion for Australian poetry, highlighting its diversity, richness and cultural significance.

Australia has not had a Poet Laureate since, I believe, 1821. Michael Massey Robinson, a convict from England no less, was appointed to the role in 1810.

The history books tell us Robinson was paid with cows for his services. The next Poet Laureate, who will be announced in October this year, will receive financial remuneration.

I thought Evelyn Araluen, who won the 2022 Stella Prize, an Australian literary award, for her debut collection of poetry, Drop Bear, would suit the role.

To be in the running though, applicants must, among other things, have had at least three professionally published books of poetry. To date, Araluen has written two works.

Maybe another time then.

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