Vortex by Rodney Hall wins The Age Book of the Year fiction prize

Showing all posts tagged: literary awards

Vortex by Rodney Hall wins The Age Book of the Year fiction prize

10 May 2025

Vortex, by Queensland based Australian author Rodney Hall, has won the fiction prize in The Age Book of the Year award for 2025.

The two times winner of the Miles Franklin literary award, says the basis for his latest novel were some pages for a book he started writing, but later gave up on, in 1971. It pays to hold onto those old manuscripts, even the ones you don’t like, or thought you didn’t.

Lech Blaine, also living in Queensland, won the non-fiction prize, with his memoir Australian Gospel.

The announcement of the winners coincided with the opening of this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF), on Thursday. The Age Book of the Year awards have a story worthy of a novel themselves. They were first presented in 1974, by The Age newspaper, for fiction and non-fiction writing. In 1993 a poetry award, the Dinny O’Hearn Prize was added.

In 1998, the awards became a feature of the MWF, until they were ceased all together in 2013. However, in 2021 the award was rebooted, but for fiction only. Then in 2022, an award for non-fiction was introduced (or should that be reintroduced?).

Temporal Boom by J M Voss wins 2024 Aurealis Best Science Fiction novel award

7 May 2025

Melbourne based sci-fi and speculative fiction author J M Voss was named winner of the 2024 Aurealis Best Science Fiction novel award, on Sunday 4 May 2025, with her novel Temporal Boom. The novel’s premise is intriguing to say the least:

Thirty years ago, the world ended. Not everyone, however, got the memo…

The nation formerly known as Australia struggles on, its red lands stalked by eleven beings of strange and anomalous power. Known as the Portents, their very existence defies all science. A trail of brutal and inexplicable deaths follow those who encounter them.

Quinn Kelly got too close to a Portent once and survived, although not unchanged. When Quinn begins to display an affinity for Time, there are many who would stop at nothing to use her for their own ends.

Quinn, however, would much rather use her preternatural powers to start a punk band — and there is no man, woman, nor overzealous cyborg detective on Earth who can stop her…

The Aurealis Awards, which recognise original Australian speculative fiction published in the previous calendar year, is also celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of their founding in 1995. Thirty years, that’s quite an achievement.

Miles Franklin Undercover, a new biography of the Australian author, by Kerrie Davies

14 April 2025

Miles Franklin Undercover, by NSW North Coast based university lecturer and author Kerrie Davies, traces Franklin’s life in the years following the 1901 publication of her iconic novel, My Brilliant Career. Spoiler: things were not too brilliant:

But fame can be deceptive. In reality, the book earned her a pittance. The family farm was sold, her new novels were rejected, and she was broke. Just two years after her debut, Miles disappeared.

On the subject of Miles Franklin, the annual Australian literary award named for her, can’t be too far away from publishing the longlist for the 2025 award. That, I’m guessing, is maybe in a month’s time?

The 2025 Stella Prize for Australian literature shortlist

9 April 2025

The shortlist for the (stellar) Stella Prize, consisting of six titles, was unveiled last night:

Black Convicts, by Santilla Chingaipe
Black Witness, by Amy McQuire
Cactus Pear For My Beloved, by Samah Sabawi
Translations, by Jumaana Abdu
The Burrow, by Melanie Cheng
Theory & Practice, by Michelle de Kretser

The Stella Prize is an annual celebration of literature written by Australian women. The winner will be announced on Friday 23 May 2025.

Three Dresses by Wanda Gibson, wins 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award

20 March 2025

Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, based Nukgal Wurra woman Wanda Gibson, has won the 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, with her book, Three Dresses. Gibson’s win is the first time a children’s title has won the award. In addition, Three Dresses won the Children’s Literature category.

Winners in other categories included Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane, in Fiction, and Black Witness by Amy McQuire, in Indigenous Writing, which is also on the longlist of this year’s Stella Prize.

Gawimarra: Gathering by Jeanine Leane, won the Poetry award, anything can happen by Susan Hampton, collected the Non-Fiction prize, while I Made This Just for You by Chris Ames, won the Unpublished Manuscript award.

Farewell to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

12 March 2025

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC), a humorous literary award honouring terrible made up opening sentences to what will, presumably, be terrible novels, is no more. BLFC founder, Dr Scott Rice, who established the award in 1982, and had been running it with his daughter EJ Rice in recent years, has decided to retire:

Being a year and a half older than Joseph Biden, I find the BLFC becoming increasingly burdensome and would like to put myself out to pasture while I still have some vim and vigor!

The BLFC was a light-hearted addition to the literary award circuit, and I hazard to guess a few of the winning entries might well have inspired some not so terrible novel openers. A list of past winners has been archived here.

The 2025 Stella Prize literary award longlist

5 March 2025

Literary award season kicks off in Australia this year, with the announcement of the 2025 Stella Prize literary award longlist yesterday, at Adelaide Writers’ Week, in South Australia.

A Language of Limbs, by Dylin Hardcastle
Always Will Be, by Mykaela Saunders
Black Convicts, by Santilla Chingaipe
Black Witness, by Amy McQuire
Cactus Pear For My Beloved, by Samah Sabawi
Translations, by Jumaana Abdu
Naag Mountain, by Manisha Anjali
Peripathetic, by Cher Tan
Rapture, by Emily Maguire
The Burrow, by Melanie Cheng
Theory & Practice, by Michelle de Kretser
The Thinning, by Inga Simpson

The Stella Prize honours Australian women’s writing annually. The shortlist will be published on Tuesday 8 April 2025, with the winner being named on Friday 23 May 2025.

The Shortlist for the Australian 2025 Indie Book Awards

20 January 2025

The Australian Indie Book Awards span six categories: fiction, non-fiction, debut fiction, illustrated non-fiction, children’s, and young adult, and last week the shortlist for the 2025 awards was published. My main interest is fiction, where Dusk by Robbie Arnott, and The Ledge by Christian White, are among contenders in that category.

I’m yet to read Dusk, but finished The Ledge in four days flat. Record time, for me, in recent years. White’s thriller/crime stories, with twists that leave you breathless, are verifiable page turners. That is was holidays contributed to the fast read. On that basis, The Ledge is my favourite in fiction. The winners will be announced on Monday 24 March 2025.

That might give me time to read Dusk, plus Cherrywood by Jock Serong, and Juice by Tim Winton, the other titles shortlisted in the fiction category, beforehand.

The ten best novels of the twenty-first century to date

31 December 2024

Literary writers at The Sydney Morning Herald canvassed critics, editors, and writers, including Jane Sullivan, David Free, Gyan Yankovich, and Beejay Silcox, to determine the best ten books of this century, or the last twenty-five years.

Producing such a small list from a relatively long time frame, will doubtless generate discussion.

Anyway, Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (winner of both the Stellar, and Miles Franklin, literary awards in 2024), along with Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, are among notable — to me, that is — inclusions.

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Melissa Lucashenko wins 2024 Mark and Evette Moran Nib award

28 November 2024

Goorie/South East Australian author Melissa Lucashenko has won the 2024 Mark and Evette Moran Nib literary award, with her 2023 novel Edenglassie. A work of historical fiction, Edenglassie, which links the past with the present, also won this year’s ARA Historical Novel Prize, Indie Book Awards, and the fiction category of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.

When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Granny Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives.

Speaking after being presented the Nib, at a ceremony at Sydney’s Bondi Pavilion last night, Lucashenko said she intended to give away much of the forty-thousand dollar prize money.

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