Showing all posts about literature
2022 Australian Book Design Awards longlist
18 March 2022
Especially for those who enjoy judging books by their covers, the 2022 Australian Book Design Awards longlist has been announced. There are over one hundred and sixty titles vying for recognition across twenty categories, plus the Deb Brash Emerging Designer of the Year award.
Fiction titles are essentially separated into four groups, children’s, young adult, commercial, and literary. The Other Side of Beautiful, by South Australian author Kim Lock, The Younger Wife, by Melbourne novelist Sally Hepworth, are among candidates in the commercial fiction category, while In Moonland, by Miles Allinson, is one of the nominations in the literary fiction segment.
Over four-hundred-and-ninety titles were considered in this year’s award, before the longlist was unveiled. The shortlist will be made public in early April, with the winners in each category being named on Friday 3 June 2022, in Melbourne.
RELATED CONTENT
The 2022 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize
16 March 2022
Entries are open in the 2022 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. Works of fiction, written in English, consisting of two thousand to five thousand words, are eligible, with a prize money pool totalling A$12,000 on offer. Entries close on Monday 2 May 2022. While an Australian based prize, submissions will be accepted from anyone regardless of their location.
Established in 2010, the prize was renamed the following year in honour of late British born Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley. Although she had been writing for decades, Jolley’s first book was not published until she was fifty-three. She also taught writing at what is now Curtin University, in Perth, Western Australia, and renowned Australian author Tim Winton was among her students.
RELATED CONTENT
Elizabeth Jolley, literature, writing
2022 International Booker Prize longlist
11 March 2022
Thirteen titles have been named on the 2022 International Booker Prize longlist. Awarded in its present format since 2016, the International Booker celebrates works translated into English, with the £50,000 prize split equally between the author and translator.
Among the titles translated from eleven languages into English, is Tomb of Sand, by New Delhi based Indian author Geetanjali Shree, and translated by American writer and painter Daisy Rockwell. Shree’s work is the first book written in Hindi to be included on the International Booker Prize longlist.
Just about all of these titles are new to me — the books I read, when time permits, tend to be contemporary Australian, but not always — so it’s good to see something new and not so familiar, that I can add to my to-be-read list.
RELATED CONTENT
Booker Prize, literature, writing
Naomi Parry Duncan wins Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship 2022
2 March 2022
Blue Mountains based Australian historian and writer Naomi Parry Duncan has been named winner of the 2022 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.
The fellowship, which is awarded to Australian biography writers, commemorates late British born Australian writer and biographer Hazel Rowley, who died in 2011.
RELATED CONTENT
Australian writing, biographies, Hazel Rowley, literature, Naomi Parry Duncan
The struggle to read classic books, but why bother?
8 February 2022
Alison Flood, writing for The Guardian in 2016, on the topic of classic books because there is some sort of obligation to do:
This week, YouGov tells us that only 4% of Brits have read War and Peace, although 14% wish they had; 3% have read Les Misérables, although 10% want to; and 7% have read Moby-Dick, with 8% aiming to.
Aside from my school days, when reading some of the classics was requisite, I’ve made little effort to pick any up since. That’s probably not the sort of thing I should say on a website where literature and books feature, but there you are. I did try though. Moby-Dick. The Great Gatsby. Pride and Prejudice. The Grapes of Wrath. Vanity Fair. East of Eden. War and Peace. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Much to my (sort of) shame, they were all DNFs, each and every one. All are great books I’m certain, and all contributed to making contemporary literature what it is, but they were titles I could not get into. But I didn’t start reading them because I felt an obligation to, I read them because they were hailed as highly revered works of literature. But most did little for me, and so be it.
Life is too short to read books you don’t want to, no matter how acclaimed they are. But maybe it’s me. I also have difficulty listening to a lot of music — some of which is considered classic — that was recorded prior to the turn of the century. Besides, it not like there is a shortage of contemporary works to read, there’s several lifetimes worth. If the classics aren’t for you, it’s simple, don’t waste time on them.
RELATED CONTENT
Veronica Gorrie wins 2022 Victorian Prize for Literature
4 February 2022
Veronica Gorrie has been named winner of the 2022 Victorian Prize for Literature, for her 2021 book Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience, a memoir which recounts her childhood, and service as an Aboriginal officer with the police force in both her home state of Victoria, and Queensland.
RELATED CONTENT
Australian writing, literature, Veronica Gorrie
Book reading suggestions for February 2022
4 February 2022
Ten books to read in February, put together by Jason Steger, books editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. A nice mix of Australian and international titles, fiction and non-fiction, including The Furies by Mandy Beaumont, What I Wish People Knew About Dementia, by Wendy Mitchell, and Found, Wanting, by Natasha Sholl.
RELATED CONTENT
Words in Progress March 2022, hosted by Declan Fry
2 February 2022
Australian writer and poet Declan Fry hosts a panel discussion with Tara June Winch, Charmaine Papertalk Green, Claire G. Coleman, about their writing processes, on Sunday 20 March 2022, from 4:15PM until 5:15PM.
RELATED CONTENT
Australian writing, Declan Fry, literature
ASA pre-budget submission hopes to boost investment in Australian literature
2 February 2022
It’s incredible to believe that Federal Government investment in Australian literature has declined by forty percent in the last ten years. It is something the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) hopes to redress in a pre-budget submission to the Australian Treasury. Direct grants to authors, and an increase in public lending rights scheme, are two key areas of interest to the ASA:
- Direct authors’ grants: the development of a Commonwealth Fellowships and Grants program which includes a focus on First Nations storytelling, designed to fuel the talent pipeline and build the creative economy of the future.
- A 20% increase to the Federal Government’s Lending Rights Budget to fund the expansion of the public lending rights (PLR) and educational lending rights (ELR) schemes to include digital formats (ebooks and audiobooks), which would modernise the schemes and reflect the reality of library holdings.
RELATED CONTENT
Australian writing, ebooks, literature
Copyright Agency-UTS New Writer’s Fellowship 2022
31 January 2022
Applications are open for the 2022 Copyright Agency-UTS New Writer’s Fellowship, an initiative co-hosted by the Copyright Agency, and the University of Technology, which aims to assist Australian writers working on their (sometimes difficult) second or third novel. The fellowship helps cover a writer’s living costs for a year, allowing them to focus on their manuscript.
Australian writers are now invited to apply for this residency for 2022. It is well known that completing a second or third book is often difficult. This unique opportunity provides a writer with the financial security to complete a new work, to take creative risks, and to connect with Australia’s leading creative writing program.
Previous recipients include Bri Lee, Fiona Wright, and Christopher Raja. Applications close on Monday 21 February 2022.
RELATED CONTENT