QLA announces new people’s choice award
The organisers of the Queensland Literary Awards (QLA), the volunteer-led awards that have replaced the axed Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, have announced a new people’s choice award, to be sponsored by the Courier-Mail.
The shortlist for the inaugural Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year, worth $5000, was announced this week. The award was open to fiction and nonfiction books written by Queensland-born authors between May 2011 and May this year.
The shortlisted books are:
Fiction
- Closer to Stone (Simon Cleary, UQP)
- The Fix (Nick Earls, Vintage)
- The Ottoman Motel (Christopher Currie, Text)
Nonfiction
- Riding the Trains in Japan (Patrick Holland, Transit Lounge)
- The Promise of Iceland (Kari Gislason, UQP)
- Worse Things Happen at Sea (William McInnes & Sarah Watts, Hachette).
Readers will have until 31 August to vote for their favourite title on the Courier-Mail website. The winner of the award will be announced along with the winners of the other Queensland Literary Awards categories on the eve of the Brisbane Writers Festival on 4 September.
‘The rebirth of the Queensland Literary Awards has been all about the power of the community,’ said Courier-Mail editor Michael Crutcher. ‘So it’s fitting the Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year should be decided by Queenslanders.’
As previously reported by Bookseller+Publisher, the shortlists for this year’s awards will be announced in late August, ahead of the awards presentation in September. QLA committee member Claire Booth told Bookseller+Publisher in June that the organisers received approximately 600 entries for the awards.
The organisers have recently secured $20,000 from the Copyright Agency Limited Cultural Fund, and raised more than $20,000 through a crowd-funding campaign, to administer and deliver the awards.
More information about the Queensland Literary Awards can be found online here.
Category: Local news
