2015 Melbourne Prize for Literature

Poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe has won the 2015 Melbourne Prize for Literature, presented every three years to a Victorian author ‘whose body of published or produced work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature, as well as to cultural and intellectual life’.

Wallace-Crabbe was presented with the $60,000 award at a ceremony at Federation Square in Melbourne on 12 November. Wallace-Crabbe was one of five authors shortlisted for the award, along with Steven Carroll, Brenda Niall, Christos Tsiolkas and Alexis Wright.

In a statement, judges said Wallace-Crabbe ‘continues an imposing and significant influence on Australian literature, in the genre of poetry’. ‘He has established himself among the vanguard of international poetry giants and made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and cultural and intellectual life,’ said the judges, adding he has also ‘devoted his career to teaching mentoring and supporting new generations of writers’.

Andrea Goldsmith was awarded the $30,000 Best Writing Award, presented for ‘a piece of published or produced work of outstanding clarity, originality and creativity by a Victorian writer’ for her novel The Memory Trap. Goldsmith’s novel was chosen from a shortlist of 10 books published in the past three years. Each of the finalists are eligible for the $6000 Civic Choice Award, which was voted on by members of the public.

The $20,000 Writers Prize, a one-off prize presented to an essay of between 10,000 and 20,000 words that includes Melbourne, Victoria or Australia as part of its subjects, went to Kate Ryan for ‘Psychotherapy for Normal People’. Ryan was also awarded a residency at the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and Communication.


This is the fourth time the Melbourne Prize for Literature has been presented, with the prize alternating between prizes for urban sculpture, music and literature in a three-year cycle. Past winners of the prize include Helen Garner (2006), Gerald Murnane (2009) and Alex Miller (2012). 

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards shortlist

Are you looking for a great book to read over the summer break?  The shortlist for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards run by The Wheeler Centre has just been announced.  These titles are some of the best of Australian writing that is perfect for those long hot summer nights.  Check out The Wheeler's Centre page for more information and click on a title to reserve it today.

Fiction

Golden boys by Sonja Hartnett. 

To name those lost by Rohan Wilson. 

Demons by Wayne Macauley. 

The snow kimono by Mark Henshaw.

N by John A. Scott.

Only the animals by Ceridwen Dovey.

Nonfiction

The bush: travels in the heart of Australia by Don Watson.
 
The tainted trial of Farah Jama by Julie Szego.

Darwin by Tess Lea.

'Acute misfortune'. The life and death of Adam Cullen by Erik Jensen.

Europeans in Australia: Volume three: Nation by Alan Atkinson. 

Where song began by Tim Low.

The National biography award winner

The ambitions of Jane Franklin by Alison Alexander has just been announced as the winner of the 2014 National Biography Award.  Jane Franklin was a writer, traveller and the wife of Tasmanian governor and Arctic explorer, John Franklin.  She was a feisty, intelligent woman who was determined to get things done both for herself and her husband as a political leader in Tasmania.  Alexander's biography of Jane is well-written and researched and the reader gets to know Jane as a woman to be reckoned with.  The biography is astutely crafted showing Jane in her many roles; she was a product of her time and yet she resisted traditional gender roles and the expectations of young ladies.  

Alison is a historian who is particularly interested in Tasmanian history. She has also written Tasmanian convicts: how felons built a free society.   She is involved in numerous historical associations in Tasmania and when writing about Jane Franklin she really tried to understand what Jane was like.  She was a puzzling woman; bossy, charming, gentle, intelligent.  Alison even visited Jane's house in London and perused books from her reading list.

This a great book for readers who love biographies, Australian history, feminism, politics or Tasmanian history.

The swan book by Alexis Wright wins the Australian Literature Society gold medal

The swan book by Alexis Wright is the 2014 winner of the Australian Literature Society gold medal.  Alexis broke onto the Australian literature scene in 2006 with her second novel Carpentaria winning the Miles Franklin Award in 2007.  Alexis is an indigenous Waayni woman from the Gulf of Carpentaria.   

In The swan book, Alexis imagines a not too distant future Australia in environmental and racial catastrophe.  Her antihero named Oblivia is rescued from by an old woman who takes her into her care.  Oblivia had been nearly killed by a gang of men and left for dead.  She is half mad but seems to have some magical rapport with swans.  When she is kidnapped by a ambitious Aboriginal politician Warren Finch, the swans begin to flock to the hotel where Oblivia is held.  All of this occurs in the aftermath of environmental apocalypse reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

This book is a rewarding but demanding read.  Oblivia's narration is untrustworthy but she is a compelling character.  Alexis is a highly imaginative and skillful writer marrying narrative and prose with intelligence and politics that is often breathtaking.

Read an extensive review here.

The Stella Prize

The Stella Prize is a new award which celebrates, promotes and rewards Australian female writers.  The winner will be announced on the 16 April.  Read reviews of each book. Check out the judges.  Follow udpates on twitter or facebook.   

These are the books on the inaugural longlist:

The burial by Courtney Collins

Questions of travel by Michelle de Kretser

The sunlit zone by Lisa Jacobson

Like a house on fire by Cate Kennedy

Sea hearts by Margo Lanagan

Mateship with birds by Carrie Tiffany

Miles Franklin Award

This year the Miles Franklin award has been flooded with female writers.  This year they will be supporting a reading challenge (Miles of reading) where you can join the forum, talk with other readers or post a review and enter the competition to win!

Follow them on twitter for more updates.  The winner will be announced on the 19 June.  There is plenty of time to read them all!

Here is the current long list and the shortlist will be announced on 30 April. Who do you hope will win?

Floundering by Romy Ash

Lola Bensky by Lily Brett

Street to street by Brian Castro

Questions of travel by Michelle de Kretser

The beloved by Annah Faulkner

The daughters of Mars by Tom Keneally

The mountain by Drusilla Modjeska

The light between oceans by M.L. Stedman

Mateship with birds by Carrie Tiffany

Red dirt talking by Jacqueline Wright

Davitt Awards

Sisters in Crime have awarded the Davitt Award to the best crime novel written by a woman since 2001 in Australia. The award is named after Ellen Davitt (1812-1879) who wrote Force and Fraud in 1865.

Here are the winners for this year:

The best adult novel was awarded to A beautiful place to die, the debut novel by Malla Nunn.

The best young fiction book was awarded to Genius squad by Catherine Jinks.

The reader's choice award was given to the already much celebrated The tall man : death and life on Palm Island by Chloe Hooper.

They are all available on the library catalogue.