CATEGORIES

Siddon Rock by Australian author Glenda Guest (Vintage) was announced on Thursday 11 March as the winner of the South East Asia and Pacific region of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book.

The Adventures of Vela by Samoan author Albert Wendt (University of Hawaii Press) was the South East Asia and the Pacific regional winner of the CWP Best Book prize.

The two titles will now be in the running for the overall Commonwealth Writers Prize, along with the regional winners of the two categories from Africa, Caribbean and Canada and South Asia and Europe.

The two overall winners will be announced on 12 April in India.

Director of the Commonwealth Foundation Mark Collins said the level of entries this year had been ‘absolutely outstanding’.

Regional chair Anne Brewster said of Siddon Rock: ‘The fable-like quality of this story captures the laconic mannerisms of Australian rural life and gestures to the styles of the tall tale and bush yarn. In Siddon Rock we revisit the myth of the white child lost in the bush with chilling freshness. The novel achieves great narrative momentum and emotional power which concludes in modest but assured optimism.’

She said Wendt’s ‘epic verse novel’ The Adventures of Vela was ‘an exhilarating read. It follows the tumultuous journeys of the ancient human, Vela, as he chronicles the life of Nafanua, the Samoan goddess of war exiled since the colonial invasion of the Samoan islands. Wendt draws upon the immense resources and creative heritage of Samoan cultural memory and spirituality which he combines with a stinging critique of the various institutions of colonisation.’

You can see further information on the eight regional Best Book and Best First Book winners at http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/.

Last year’s overall winner of the Best Book prize was Christos Tsiolkas for The Slap (A&U).

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2010/03/15215/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Arts Minister Peter Garrett has announced the 10 new author ambassadors for the renamed Books Alive campaign ‘Get Reading’.

‘Alex Miller, Christos Tsiolkas, Craig Silvey, Nick Earls, Malla Nunn, Mark Dapin, Maggie Alderson, Judy Nunn, Georgia Blain and Rachael Treasure have this year joined the Get Reading! campaign as author ambassadors,’ said Garrett.

As reported in the Weekly Book Newsletter in November last year the Books Alive campaign will now be known as ‘Get Reading’ and will continue to be chaired by Sandra yates, with Cheryl Akle as project director. It will run in September 2010.

As with last year’s campaign, the ‘free book’ for customers in 2010 will be a choice of either a children’s book or a short story collection, both commissioned for the campaign.

‘Reading remains one of life’s great pleasures for everyone and Get Reading! will again showcase 50 great titles to encourage Australians to remember just how great it is take time out with a book,’ said Garrett.

‘We know from recent Australia Council research that 84 per cent of Australians read a novel in the past year,’ said Garrett. ‘Since it began Get Reading! and Books Alive have directly resulted in the sale of an extra 1.36 million books throughout Australia, opening up a whole new world of great yarns and experiences to people of all age groups right across the country. I am sure this year will be no exception.’

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2010/03/15118/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

The Wheeler Centre officially opened on Friday night, with the Centre’s first event, A Gala Night of Storytelling, raising $20,000 for the Indigenous Literacy Project the following evening. The storytelling event featured writers David Malouf, Cate Kennedy, Shane Maloney, Judith Lucy, Alex Miller, Chloe Hooper, Christos Tsiolkas, Alexis Wright, John Marsden, Tara June Winch, John Safran and Paul Kelly and was a sell-out.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2010/02/14873/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Peter Sutton has won the ‘individual’ section of this year’s Manning Clark House National Cultural Awards for his book The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus (MUP).

A citation said the book had ‘encouraged many of [Sutton's] colleague anthropologists, linguists and others with long and close association with Aboriginal communities to look afresh at what is happening and what ought to be. Not all have agreed, but the very debate has helped sharpen the ideas and refocused policy and programs. There can be little doubt of its impact on Australian thinking and culture.’

Also nominated for the award were Andrew McGahan (Wonders of a Godless World, A&U); Christos Tsiolkas (The Slap, A&U); Grace Karskens (The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, A&U); and Paul Kelly (The March of the Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia, MUP). An honourable mention went to Julianne Schultz (founding editor, Griffith Review); Michael Cathcart (The Water Dreamers, Text); Louis Nowra (Ice, A&U) and Kristin Otto (Capital: Melbourne when it was Capital City of Australia 1901-27, Text). Special mentions went to Peter Daley (Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia’s Forgotten War, MUP); John Danalis (Riding the Black Cockatoo, A&U); Judy Watson (Judy Watson: Blood Language, Miegunyah); Zeny Giles (Miracle of the Waters, Penguin); and Mark Tredinnick (The Blue Plateau: A Landscape Memoir, UQP).

Among those shortlisted for the ‘group’ category of the prize were Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton, chief editors, for First Australians: An Illustrated History (Miegunyah). The group award went to the National Portrait Gallery.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2010/01/14385/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Gerald Murnane was announced as the winner of this year’s Melbourne Prize for Literature last Wednesday 11 November, with Nam Le picking up the Best Writing Award for The Boat (Penguin).

Murnane, who had refused to enter the award in previous years because he thought he would have to spend half the $60,000 prize on international travel, said he was happy to have won now that he realised he could use the winnings for local travel and would not have to stray far from his beloved Melbourne.

The judges said Murnane’s body of work was ‘one of extraordinary originality, which, having been perfected over a lifetime, resonates with truth’.

Le collected the $30,000 Best Writing Award for a book the judges described as ‘an astonishing debut consisting of stories of great depth and moral courage for our time’.

The Melbourne Prize for Literature is awarded every three years, with prizes for urban sculpture and music being awarded in the intervening years. The 2006 winner was Helen Garner, with Christos Tsiolkas taking out the Best Writing Award for Dead Europe (Vintage).

A $3000 Civic Choice Award will be decided by visitors to an exhibition based on the shortlisted works and announced on 27 November. For more information see www.melbourneprizetrust.org. 

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2009/11/14012/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were presented at a dinner last night at Zinc, Federation Square, Melbourne.

Premier John Brumby, who presented the awards, noted that for 25 years the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards ‘have celebrated our passion for literature and writing in all its forms’. Alexis Wright gave a thoughtful keynote address, weaving a message of the ‘accumulated acts of randomness affecting Indigenous people across the country’ through a metaphorical exploration of RL Stevenson’s Travels With A Donkey in the Cevennes.

Christos Tsiolkas, who took home yet another award for The Slap (A&U) with the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction ($30,000), accepted his award from the floor due to a broken foot, and praised ‘all the books on the shortlist’, which he’d read. ‘I don’t know how you judge’ he said humbly.

Chloe Hooper, also a multi-award winner, received the Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction ($30,000) for The Tall Man (Penguin), beating 168 entries. Hooper said she felt very ‘privileged’ to be able to tell ‘something of the story of Cameron Doomadgee and his death in custody on Palm Island’.

Other awards presented on the night included:

The CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry: The Golden Bird (Robert Adamson, Black Inc.)
The Prize for Young Adult Fiction: Something in the World Called Love (Sue Saliba, Penguin)
The Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing About Italians in Australia: Death in the Mountains (Lisa Clifford, Macmillan)
The Prize for Science Writing: The Rise of Animals: Evolution and Diversification of the Kingdom Animalia (Patricia Vickers-Rich, John Hopkins University Press)
The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer: Sufficient Grace (Amy Espeseth)
The Louis Esson Prize for Drama: Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd (Lally Katz, Malthouse Theatre)
The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate: ‘We Have Still Not Lived Long Enough‘ (Tom Griffiths, Inside Story)
The John Curtin Prize for Journalism: ‘The Penalty is Death: Inside Bali’s Kerobokan Prison’ (Luke Davies, The Monthly)
The Prize for Best Music Theatre Script: Shane Warne: The Musical (Eddie Perfect, Token Events)

A record 705 entries were received this year.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2009/09/13130/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Books Alive, an Australian Government initiative, aims to encourage all Australians to turn off their screens and get reading.

In choosing to purchase one of its “50 Books You Can’t Put Down”, you are eligible to receive a FREE book – either a dazzling collection of brand-new short stories by ten of Australia’s best writers, or Grug Learns to Read, a new title in the classic Australian series.

50 Books You Can’t Put Down

The Book of Rapture by Nikki Gemmell
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville
The Rip by Robert Drewe
Dead Man Running by Ross Coulthart & Duncan McNab
The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay
206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
Shatter by Michael Robotham
How to Break Your Own Heart by Maggie Alderson
Dear Fatty by Dawn French
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Parky: My Autobiography by Michael Parkinson
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Through a Glass Darkly by Caroline Jones
Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy
The Young Widow’s Book of Home Improvement by Virginia Lloyd
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
The Night My Bum Dropped by Gretel Killeen
To Love, Honour and Betray by Kathy Lette
The True Story of Butterfish by Nick Earls
Occy by Mark Occhilupo & Tim Baker
True Colours by Adam Gilchrist
A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
Australian Tragic by Jack Marx
Pacific Fury by Peter Thompson
1788 by David Hill
My God! It’s a Woman by Nancy Bird
The People’s Train by Tom Keneally
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
Dog Boy by Eva Hornung
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Wanting by Richard Flanagan
Dark Country by Bronwyn Parry
A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta
Eagle Day by Robert Muchamore
Robot Riot! by Andy Griffiths
Somebody’s Crying by Maureen McCarthy
Pearlie in the Park by Wendy Harmer
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Nixie’s Song by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black
From Little Things Big Things Grow by Paul Kelly & Kev Carmody
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox & Helen Oxenbury

The shortlist for the 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards was announced yesterday by Lynne Kosky MP, Minister for the Arts.

The winners of the 2009 Awards will be announced by the Hon. John Brumby MP, Premier of Victoria, at a celebratory dinner at Federation Square on Tuesday 1 September. The evening’s MC will be writer and composer Eddie Perfect, with a keynote speech by multi-award-winning novelist Alexis Wright. For bookings please phone (03) 8664 7099.
Further information about the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards can be found at http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pla

SHORTLIST

The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction

The Pages
Murray Bail
(Text Publishing)

Dog Boy
Eva Hornung
(Text Publishing)

The Boat
Nam Le
(Penguin)

The Slap
Christos Tsiolkas
(Allen & Unwin)

Breath
Tim Winton
(Penguin)

The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction
 
The City’s Outback
Gillian Cowlishaw
(UNSW Press)

Arabesques
Robert Dessaix
(Picador)

The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island
Chloe Hooper
(Hamish Hamilton)

House of Exile: The Life and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroger-Mann
Evelyn Juers
(Giramondo Publishing)

Darwin’s Armada
Iain McCalman
(Viking)

The CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry

The Golden Bird
Robert Adamson
(Black Inc)

Fishing in the Devonian
Carol Jenkins
(Puncher and Wattman)

The Other Way Out
Bronwyn Lea
(Giramondo Publishing)

The Louis Esson Prize for Drama

Realism
Paul Galloway
(Melbourne Theatre Company/Currency Press)

Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd
Lally Katz
(Malthouse Theatre)

The Modern International Dead
Damien Millar
(Griffin Theatre Company/Currency Press)

The Prize for Young Adult Fiction

The Two Pearls of Wisdom
Alison Goodman
(HarperCollins)

The Beginner’s Guide to Living
Lia Hills
(Text Publishing)

Something in the World Called Love
Sue Saliba
(Penguin)

The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate

We Have Still Not Lived Long Enough
Tom Griffiths
(Inside Story)

The Henson Case
David Marr
(Text Publishing)

Ratbags at the Gates
Helen O’Neil
(Griffith Review)

The Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia

Death in the Mountains
Lisa Clifford
(Macmillan)

Neither Here nor There: Italians and Swiss-Italians on the Walhalla Goldfield 1865-1915
Annamaria Davine
(Italian Australian Institute)

And Be Home Before Dark
Roland Rocchiccioli
(Hardie Grant Books)

The John Curtin Prize for Journalism

The Guards’ Story
Peter Cronau and Quentin McDermott
(Four Corners, ABC Television)

The Penalty is Death: Inside Bali’s Kerobokan Prison
Luke Davies
(The Monthly)

A Week in Kinglake
Michael Vincent
(ABC Radio)

The Prize for Best Music Theatre Script

Poor Boy
Matt Cameron and Tim Finn
(Melbourne Theatre Company/Currency Press)

Shane Warne The Musical
Eddie Perfect
(Token Events)

Metro Street
Matthew Robinson
(Arts Asia Pacific, Power Arts and the State Theatre Company of South Australia)

The Prize for Science Writing

Pasteur’s Gambit
Stephen Dando-Collins
(Vintage)

Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action
David Spratt and Philip Sutton
(Scribe)

The Rise of Animals: Evolution and Diversification of the Kingdom Animalia
Patricia Vickers-Rich
(The Johns Hopkins University Press)

The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer

Sufficient Grace
Amy Espeseth

Like Being a Wife
Catherine Harris

The Sunlit Zone
Lisa Jacobson

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Christos Tsiolkas is up for yet another award, shortlisted for Best Feature Film Adaptation at the 42nd annual AWGIE Awards (the Australian Writers’ Guild Annual Awards) for the film Blessed, along with Andrew Bovell, Melissa Reeves and Patricia Cornelius. See all the nominations for writing in film, TV, theatre and radio at the Australian Writers’ Guild website. The AWGIES will be held in Sydney on 28 August.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2009/07/12700/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.