Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award 2024 longlist announced

The longlist for the Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, which has increased in value to $50,000, has been announced.

The 14 longlisted titles, chosen from 235 entries, are:

• Saltwater Boy (Bradley Christmas, Walker Books)
• Lola in the Mirror (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate)
• Life As We Knew It: The extraordinary story of Australia’s pandemic (Aisha Dow & Melissa Cunningham, Scribe)
• Restless Dolly Maunder (Kate Grenville, Text)
• Darling Girls (Sally Hepworth, Macmillan)
• Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky (Rebecca Lim, A&U Children’s)
• The Conversion (Amanda Lohrey, Text)
• Edenglassie (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP)
• A Line in the Sand: 20 years of Red Room Poetry (Red Room Poetry, Pantera)
• The First Summer of Callie McGee (Alison A Tait, Scholastic)
• Personal Score (Ellen van Neerven, UQP)
• A Brilliant Life (Rachelle Unreich, Hachette)
• Praiseworthy (Alexis Wright, Giramondo)
• Media Monsters: The transformation of Australia’s newspaper empires (Sally Young, UNSW Press).

Founded in 1967 by Australian writer, editor, academic and educator Colin Roderick, and administered by the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies (FALS) at James Cook University, the award recognises the best original book, according to the judges, that is published in Australia in the previous calendar year, dealing with ‘any aspect of Australian life’.

A shortlist will be announced in August, with the winner to be announced at a presentation in October.

Sarah Holland-Batt was the 2023 winner for her poetry collection The Jaguar (UQP). More information about the award is available on the FALS website.

Category: Awards Local news