Peter Blazey Fellowship, Ernest Scott, Wesley Michel Wright and Affirm Press Creative Writing prizes presented

The University of Melbourne’s Australian Centre and Faculty of Arts announced the winners of the Peter Blazey Fellowship, the Ernest Scott Prize, the Wesley Michel Wright Prize and the Affirm Press Creative Writing Prize at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 23 August.

The Peter Blazey Fellowship was awarded to Rebe Taylor for The Politics and Poetry of Rhys Jones’ Tasmanian Archaeology, ‘an evocative account of the controversial Tasmanian archaeologist Rhys Jones’. Commendations were also given for Jane Messer’s Grave Relations: A Biography and Jessica White’s Blue Shadows and Morning Light: Tracing the Art Collection of F.G. White.

The fellowship is awarded to further a work-in-progress in biography, autobiography or life-writing, and is named in memory of journalist, author and gay activist Peter Blazey. The winner receives $15,000 and a one-month residency at the Australian Centre.

The Ernest Scott Prize for history, worth $13,000, went to Angela Wanhalla for Matters of the Heart: A History of Interracial Marriage in New Zealand (Auckland University Press).

Wanhalla’s book was chosen from a shortlist of four that also included Nature’s Line: George Goyder—Surveyor, Environmentalist, Visionary (Janis Sheldrick, Wakefield Press), ANZAC Journeys: Returning to the Battlefields of World War II (Bruce Scates, Cambridge University Press) and Encounters: The Creation of New Zealand (Paul Moon, Penguin NZ).

The prize, awarded in conjunction with the Australian Historical Association, is given to a work based on original research that contributes to the history of Australia or New Zealand or to the history of colonisation.

The Wesley Michel Wright Prize for poetry, worth $4000, was awarded to Sarah Day for Tempo (Puncher & Wattman). Also shortlisted for the award were Maps, Cargo (Bella Li, Vagabond Press), Circle Work (Cameron Lowe, Puncher & Wattman) and The Sea with No One in It (Niki Koulouris, Porcupine’s Quill).             

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the inaugural Affirm Press Creative Writing Prize was presented to Suzanne Hermanoczki for her manuscript Our Fathers.

For more information about the awards and fellowships, visit the website here.

Category: Local news