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NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2018 shortlists announced

Tuesday, 20 March 2018   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The shortlists for the 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards have been announced.

The shortlisted titles in each category are:

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)

  • Common People (Tony Birch, UQP)
  • Seabirds Crying in the Harbour Dark (Catherine Cole, UWA Publishing)
  • Pulse Points: Stories (Jennifer Down, Text)
  • The Book of Dirt (Bram Presser, Text)
  • The Restorer (Michael Sala, Text)
  • Taboo (Kim Scott, Pan Macmillan)

Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction ($40,000)

  • Victoria: The Woman Who Made the Modern World (Julia Baird, HarperCollins)
  • ‘A passion for exploring new countries’. Matthew Flinders & George Bass (Josephine Bastian, Australian Scholarly Publishing)
  • The Enigmatic Mr Deakin (Judith Brett, Text)
  • Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth (Paul Ham, William Heinemann)
  • The Green Bell: a memoir of love, madness and poetry (Paula Keogh, Affirm)
  • The Boy Behind the Curtain (Tim Winton, Penguin)

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)

  • Archipelago (Adam Aitken, Vagabond Press)
  • Euclid’s dog: 100 algorithmic poems (Jordie Albiston, Gloria SMH Press)
  • Bone Ink (Rico Craig, Guillotine Press)
  • Argosy (Bella Li, Vagabond Press)
  • Captive and Temporal (Nguyễn Tiên Hoàng, Vagabond Press)
  • These Wild Houses (Omar Sakr, Cordite Books)

Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)

  • The Patchwork Bike (Maxine Beneba Clarke, illus by Van T Rudd, Hachette)
  • The Elephant (Peter Carnavas, UQP)
  • Blossom (Tamsin Janu, Omnibus Books)
  • Figgy Takes the City (Tamsin Janu, Omnibus Books)
  • The Sorry Tale of Fox and Bear (Margrete Lamond, illus by Heather Vallance, Dirt Lane Press)
  • How to Bee (Bren MacDibble, A&U)

Ethel Turner Prize for Young Adult’s Literature ($30,000)

  • In the Dark Spaces (Cally Black, HGE)
  • The Blue Cat (Ursula Dubosarsky, A&U)
  • The Ones that Disappeared (Zana Fraillon, Hachette)
  • A Shadow’s Breath (Nicole Hayes, Random House Children’s)
  • The Build-Up Season (Megan Jacobson, Penguin)
  • Ballad for a Mad Girl (Vikki Wakefield, Text)

Indigenous Writers’ Prize ($30,000, offered biennially)

  • Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling (Larissa Behrendt, UQP)
  • Common People (Tony Birch, UQP)
  • Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms (Anita Heiss, S&S)
  • The Drover’s Wife (Leah Purcell, Currency Press and Belvoir in association with Oombarra Productions)
  • Taboo (Kim Scott, Pan Macmillan)

Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)

  • No More Boats (Felicity Castagna, Giramondo)
  • The Permanent Resident (Roanna Gonsalves, UWA Publishing)
  • Dark Convicts (Judy Johnson, UWA Publishing)
  • The Family Law, Series 2 Episode 4 (Benjamin Law and Kirsty Fisher, Matchbox Pictures)
  • Down the Hume (Peter Polites, Hachette)
  • Quicksilver (Nicolas Rothwell, Text)

Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)

  • The Sound of Waiting (Mary Anne Butler, Brown’s Mart Arts Ltd)
  • Rice (Michele Lee, presented by Queensland Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company, published by Playlab)
  • Black is the New White (Nakkiah Lui, Sydney Theatre Company)
  • Mark Colvin’s Kidney (Tommy Murphy, Currency Press and Belvoir)
  • Little Emperors (Lachlan Philpott, Malthouse Theatre)
  • The Real and Imagined History of the Elephant Man (Tom Wright, Malthouse Theatre)

Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)

  • Deep Water: The Real Story (Aman da Blue and Jacob Hickey, Blackfella Films)
  • Top of the Lake: China Girl, Series 2 Episode 4 ‘Birthday’ (Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, See-Saw Films)
  • Sweet Country (Steven McGregor and David Tranter, Bunya Productions)
  • Seven Types of Ambiguity, Episode 2 ‘Alex’ (Jacquelin Perske, Matchbox Pictures)
  • Please Like Me, Series 4 Episode 5 ‘Burrito Bowl’ (Josh Thomas, Thomas Ward and Liz Doran, Guesswork TV)

The winners will be announced at the beginning of the Sydney Writers’ Festival on 30 April, including the winner of the $5000 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, for which there was no shortlist announced this year. Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open now here.

For more information on the awards, see the State Library of NSW website.

 

Category: Awards Local news