Showing all posts about literature
The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2021 shortlist
25 October 2021
The shortlist for the (Australian) Prime Minister’s Literary Awards was unveiled last week. The awards recognise a broad spectrum of Australian writing, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, Australian history, young adult, and children’s literature. A generous A$80,000 prize (tax free) is on offer to the overall winner, a nice shot in the arm for someone’s future writing endeavours, while all shortlisted authors receive $5,000 each.
Andrew Pippos, Evie Wyld, and Amanda Lohrey, are among contenders in the fiction category. The winner will be announced in early December, 2021.
RELATED CONTENT
Australian writing, literature
Boundless Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship 2022
22 October 2021
Applications are open for the 2022 Boundless Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship, a partnership between Writing NSW and Text Publishing. Submissions close on Monday 22 November 2021.
The mentorship is awarded annually to an unpublished Indigenous writer who has made substantial progress on a work of fiction or non-fiction. The intention of the program is to support the writer to develop their manuscript and to facilitate a pathway to publication.
RELATED CONTENT
Australian writing, Indigenous literature, literature
From the desk of your favourite author
22 October 2021
Kill Your Darlings asked Australian authors about their writing routines, and to share images of their working spaces.
RELATED CONTENT
Australian writing, literature
The T. S. Eliot Prize 2021 poetry shortlist announced
15 October 2021
The 2021 shortlist for the T. S. Eliot Prize for poetry has been announced. The winner, who will be named in January 2022, will receive £25,000, while the nine runners up will each pocket £1,500. It’s good to see the efforts of poets that may usually go unrecognised, being recognised.
RELATED CONTENT
literature, poetry, T. S. Eliot
The Historical Novel Society Australasia shortlist 2021
11 October 2021
The shortlist for the annual Historical Novel Society Australasia historical novel prize has been announced. Presently there are two categories, adult, and children and young adult. Winners will be named on Friday, 22 October 2021.
RELATED CONTENT
historical fiction, literature
Abdulrazak Gurnah winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature
8 October 2021
United Kingdom based Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah has been named the 2021 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
RELATED CONTENT
Abdulrazak Gurnah, literature, writing
The Banksia House Breakout, by James Roxburgh
16 September 2021
It’s a breakout, but not the sort of breakout you’re thinking of. Eighty-something widow Ruth Morris has been moved into Banksia House, a retirement home in Sydney, by her son, Michael. While the name of Ruth’s new abode may sound homely, Ruth instead feels homesick and isolated, as she pines for her past life of independence.
But when Ruth receives word her best friend Gladys is unwell, she hatches an escape plan in The Banksia House Breakout (published by Simon & Schuster, September 2021); the debut novel of Sydney based Australian writer and audiologist James Roxburgh. And with some help from her new found friends at Banksia House, Ruth makes a dash for Queensland.
But the journey is filled with trials and tribulations as Ruth, Beryl, and Keith, head north, hoping they’ll reach Gladys in time. While dealing with all sorts of problems on the road, the trio has to constantly outwit the home, and their families, lest they be stopped. Blending humour with the stark reality of aged care living, here’s another title for your reading list.
RELATED CONTENT
books, fiction, James Roxburgh, literature, novels, TBR list
The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, by Laura Imai Messina
15 September 2021
Imagine there were a way to contact your deceased loved ones. To feel you’d conversed with them, and perhaps found some comfort in the wake of their passing. But what might you say if it were possible? If it were as simple as picking up a phone and talking? If you can make your way to the Japanese city of Otsuchi, you might be able to do that.
In a garden there, is an old, disconnected, telephone box, called the phone of the wind. Those grieving the loss of loved one go there to seek solace, and Japan based Italian author Laura Imai Messina’s new novel, The Phone Box at the Edge of the World (published by Allen & Unwin, July 2020) is based on Otsuchi’s phone of the wind.
Yui lost her mother and daughter in the tsunami of 2011. Despite her grief she does what she can to carry on. After hearing about the phone in Otsuchi, she travels there. But she cannot pick up the phone and speak. But there Yui meets Takeshi, whose young daughter stopped talking when his wife died, and the two begin to form a bond.
RELATED CONTENT
books, fiction, Laura Imai Messina, literature, novels, TBR list
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, by Emily Austin
14 September 2021
Gilda, a woman in her late twenties, is a person with a few problems. She has a dread of death. She’s depressed. So much so she can’t deal with washing the dishes, showering, or even turning up for work. Unsurprisingly then she finds herself seeking another job, and is inadvertently hired as a receptionist at a Catholic church.
But Gilda is not Catholic, nor is she even religious. She is also gay. In addition though to lying about who she is, and pretending to be familiar with the workings of the Church, she also becomes obsessed with her late predecessor, Grace. Certain her passing was no accident, Gilda commences her own investigation into Grace’s death.
Could then Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, (published by Allen & Unwin, August 2021) possibly have a more apt title? Early reviews for the debut novel of Canadian author Emily Austin look promising. Buzzfeed described it as “the perfect blend of macabre and funny“, while The Skinny found it “funny, dark and harrowing.”
RELATED CONTENT
books, Emily Austin, fiction, literature, novels, TBR list
Redhead by the Side of the Road, by Anne Tyler
13 September 2021
Now I’m judging books by their titles, but as a redhead, how could I go passed the latest novel by American author Anne Tyler: Redhead by the Side of the Road (published by Penguin Books Australia, 2021). The protagonist, forty-something Micah, is a creature of habit; you could set your watch by his routines.
By day he works as a freelance computer technician, and come evening looks after the apartment block he lives in. He has a woman friend, and turns in each night at ten o’clock. But when his better half tells him she’s about to be evicted from her place, and a teenage boy arrives at the door, saying he’s his son, Micah’s ordered life is plunged into turmoil.
From the little I’ve read about the book so far, it seems there’s no actual redhead character in the story, but best I say no more on the count. Coming in at about one hundred and seventy eight pages, Redhead by the Side of the Road is a shorter read though, which sometimes is exactly what you want.
RELATED CONTENT