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ACT Notable Book Awards 2023 winners

Friday, 30 June 2023   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The winners for the ACT Notable Book Awards, which highlight and celebrate the excellence and talent of writers in and around the ACT region, have been announced.

The winning works in each category are:

Fiction

  • Winner (traditional publishing): The Tilt (Chris Hammer, A&U)
  • Winner (self-published): Then Eve (Tanya Davies)

Nonfiction

  • Winner (traditional): The Glass Cricket Ball (Jan Williams Smith, Big Sky)
  • Winner (self-published): Neither King nor Saint (Helen Topor)

Poetry

  • Winner (traditional): Beloved (Penelope Layland, Recent Work Press)
  • Winner (self-published):Translating Loss: a haiku collection (Maurice Nevile)

Children’s

  • Winner (traditional): Diary of a Rescued Wombat: The untold story (Jackie French & Bruce Whatley, HarperCollins)
  • Winner (self-published): Charles the Gallery Dog (Barbie Robinson & Ian Robertson)

Special Book Award

  • Whitefella Yella Tree (Dylan Van Den Berg, Currency Press)

The judges said, ‘Whitefella Yella Tree is an emotionally affecting, imaginative and wildly symbolic love story about two young First Nations men. While set in the nineteenth century, the play has a timeless atmosphere. It addresses the experience of violent colonialism in a way that is moving and utterly original.’

June Shenfield National Poetry Awards

  • First place: Rhian Healy (WA)
  • Second place: Alana Kelsall (VIC)
  • Third place: Rebecca Fleming (ACT)

The June Shenfield National Poetry Awards are an annual Australia-wide poetry prize established to commemorate poet June Shenfield and to encourage people to write, publish and read poetry. June Shenfield was a poet, playwright and performance artist, who opened a gallery and bookshop in France devoted to Australian art and writing.

The Anne Edgeworth Writers Fellowship

  • Linda Chen

The Anne Edgeworth fellowship for writers awards $5000 annually to emerging writers in the Canberra Region to develop skills and to widen their experience in the craft of writing. The award memorialises Anne Edgeworth, who was a prominent Canberra poet, writer, theatre director, academic, conservationist and activist for reconciliation.

The winners were announced at an event at Canberra Contemporary Arts Space on 29 June.

The ACT Notable Book Awards are administered by Marion, formerly the ACT Writers Centre. For more information about the awards, visit the website here.

 

Category: Awards Local news