NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2022 shortlists announced

The shortlists for the 2022 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards have been announced.

The shortlisted titles in each category are:

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)

• Dark as Last Night (Tony Birch, UQP)
• The Kindness of Birds (Merlinda Bobis, Spinifex)
• The Shut Ins (Katherine Brabon, A&U)
• The Dogs (John Hughes, Upswell)
• Pushing Back (John Kinsella, Transit Lounge)
• The Performance (Claire Thomas, Hachette)

Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction ($40,000)

• Leaping into Waterfalls: The enigmatic Gillian Mears (Bernadette Brennan, A&U)
• Black and Blue: A memoir of racism and resilience (Veronica Gorrie, Scribe)
• The Mother Wound (Amani Haydar, Macmillan)
• The Winter Road: A story of legacy, land and a killing at Croppa Creek (Kate Holden, Black Inc.)
• The School: The ups and downs of one year in the classroom (Brendan James Murray, Macmillan)
• Rogue Forces (Mark Willacy, S&S)

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)

• TAKE CARE (Eunice Andrada, Giramondo)
• Dropbear (Evelyn Araluen, UQP)
• A Thousand Crimson Blooms (Eileen Chong, UQP)
• accelerations & inertias (Dan Disney, Vagabond Press)
• Supervivid Depastoralism (John Kinsella, Vagabond Press)
• Theory of Colours (Bella Li, Vagabond Press)

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

• Me, Microbes and I (Philip Bunting, HGCP)
• My Brother Ben (Peter Carnavas, UQP)
• Bear and Rat (Christopher Cheng, illus by Stephen Michael King, Puffin)
• Dragon Skin (Karen Foxlee, A&U)
• Always (Morris Gleitzman, Puffin)
• Bindi (Kirli Saunders, Magabala)

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

• Waking Romeo (Kathryn Barker, A&U)
• Girls in Boys’ Cars (Felicity Castagna, Pan)
• The Gaps (Leanne Hall, Text)
• Are You There, Buddha (Pip Harry, Lothian)
• Tiger Daughter (Rebecca Lim, A&U)
• Henry Hamlet’s Heart (Rhiannon Wilde, UQP)

Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)

• Coming of Age in the War on Terror (Randa Abdel-Fattah, NewSouth)
• Still Alive: Notes from Australia’s immigration detention system (Safdar Ahmed, Twelve Panels Press)
• TAKE CARE (Eunice Andrada, Giramondo)
• Cursed! (Kodie Bedford, Belvoir Street Theatre)
• The Mother Wound (Amani Haydar, Macmillan)
• Tiger Daughter (Rebecca Lim, A&U)

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

• After Story (Larissa Behrendt, UQP)
• Ghost Bird (Lisa Fuller, UQP)
• Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (Anita Heiss, S&S)
• True Tracks: Respecting Indigenous knowledge and culture (Terri Janke, NewSouth)
• The Boy from the Mish (Gary Lonesborough, A&U)
• God, the Devil and Me (Alf Taylor, Magabala)

UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000)

• New Animal (Ella Baxter, A&U)
• Friends & Dark Shapes (Kavita Bedford, Text)
• Low Expectations (Stuart Everly-Wilson, Text)
• Night Blue (Angela O’Keeffe, Transit Lounge)
• The Archaeology of a Dream City (Monica Raszewski, Balestier Press)
• Hold Your Fire (Chloe Wilson, Scribner)

Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)

• Cursed! (Kodie Bedford, Belvoir Street Theatre)
• Green Park (Elias Jamieson Brown, Griffin Theatre Company)
• Queen Fatima (James Elazzi, National Theatre of Parramatta/Australian Plays Transform)
• Hibernation (Finegan Kruckemeyer, State Theatre Company of South Australia/Currency Press)
• Orange Thrower (Kirsty Marillier, Griffin Theatre Company and National Theatre of Parramatta/Currency Press)
• York (Ian Michael & Chris Isaacs, Black Swan State Theatre Company)

Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)

• Nitram (Shaun Grant, Good Thing Productions)
• Ablaze (Alec Morgan & Tiriki Onus, Jotz Productions)
• Bump Season 1, Episode 10: Matrescence (Kelsey Munro, Roadshow Rough Diamond/Stan)
• The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (Leah Purcell, Oombarra Productions).

Voting for the People’s Choice Award is also now open.

Thirty judges considered a record 746 entries across 10 prize categories. The winners will be announced on the eve of the Sydney Writers’ Festival on Monday, 16 May 2022. For more information on the awards, see the State Library of NSW website.

Category: Awards Local news