Slaughter wins 2024 Calibre Essay Prize

Aotearoa New Zealand writer Tracey Slaughter has won the 2024 Australian Book Review (ABR) Calibre Essay Prize.

Slaughter’s essay, ‘why your hair is long & your stories short’, was chosen by judges Amy Baillieu, Shannon Burns and Beejay Silcox from a shortlist of eleven, which in turn were narrowed down from 567 entries from 28 countries. Runners-up were Natasha Sholl (for ‘Hold Your Nerve’) and Nicole Hasham (for ‘Bloodstone’).

According to the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa, Slaughter is the first overseas writer to win the nonfiction essay prize, which includes a cash prize of $10,000. Judges described the winning essay as ‘the literary equivalent of a haircut—this piece is as sharp as good scissors, as evocative as it is incisive’.

Slaughter is a poet, fiction writer and essayist, who has previously won awards including the 2023 Manchester Poetry Prize, the 2020 Fish Short Story Prize, and the 2014 Bridport Prize, as well as receiving a runner-up place in the 2018 Peter Porter Poetry Prize, also administrated by ABR. Her recent books include Devil’s Trumpet (2021) and Conventional Weapons (2019), both published by Te Herenga Waka University Press, and she has a forthcoming collection to be released in August, the girls in the red house are singing.

‘Venturing from fiction into personal essay territory has felt beset with risks, and I’ve often found myself back in places that have tested every nerve-end,’ said Slaughter. ‘Real stories raise the stakes in such a physical way. It feels as though the Calibre Essay Prize has come at the perfect time—to help quell those fears and to spur me on in my unfolding work on a collection of personal essays. I feel astounded and blessed and so utterly grateful to all who make this prize possible.’

Last year’s winner of the Calibre Essay Prize was Tracy Ellis for her essay ‘Flow States’.

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