ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

There was an awkward moment at the Victorian Premier’s Reading Awards last night when it was noted that the winner of the non-fiction award, Mark McKenna, had also won the Queensland Premier’s Award. He gave a kind of wry smile, and it was hard to tell whether this was because the news about the Queensland awards had been leaked earlier in the day, or whether it was because of the ABC’s shabby reporting of it, which overshadowed the winner’s achievement by focussing on an entrant who didn’t win. The less said about that, the better. Suffice to say that this grand book An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark (which is on my TBR) looks to me like a work of impressive scholarship and one much more likely to have genuine literary merit.

The Fiction Book Award  and Australian Short Story Collection – Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award
went to Amanda Lohrey for Reading Madame Bovary published by Black Inc.  I read and reviewed it a while ago.  I also admired Lohrey’s novella, Vertigo which came out in 2009.  That’s a very fine work too, and proof that novels don’t have to be mega-long to pack a punch.  (See my review).

The Emerging Queensland Author – Manuscript Award
went to Annah Lee Faulkner for The Beloved and the Unpublished Indigenous Writer – Arts Queensland David Unaipon Award went to Dylan Coleman for ‘Mazin’ Grace.

The Children’s Book – Mary Ryan’s Award
went to Michael Gerard Bauer for Just a Dog, which is an impressive junior novel.  A link to my review is here.

There were heaps of other awards too, but I need an early night after all this gadding about, so click this link to read all about them and summaries of the winning works as well. (Update 21/112015: sorry, the Qld government has deleted this page.)