2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards were announced yesterday. Here are the winners!
The 2016 Christina Stead Prize for fiction
- Locust Girl, a lovesong, by Merlinda Bobis, Spinifex Press, 2015 (see my review)
The 2016 Indigenous Writer’s Prize, and Book of the Year
- Dark Emu, Black Seeds, agriculture or accident? by Bruce Pascoe, Magabala Books, 2015 (see my review)
- Joint winner of the Indigenous Writer’s Prize was Heat and Light by Ellen Van Neerven
The 2016 Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
- Reckoning, a memoir, by Magda Szubanski, Text Publishing, 2015
The 2016 Multicultural NSW Award
- Good Muslim Boy by Osamah Sami, Hardie Grant Books, 2015
The 2016 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
- An Astronaut’s Life by Sonja Dechian, Text, 2015
The 2016 Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature
- Laurinda by Alice Pung, Black Inc, 2014
The 2016 Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature
- Teacup by Rebeccca Young and Matt Ottley, Scholastic Press, 2015
There was a special award for Dr Rosie Scott but there’s no citation to explain why. I think it might be for her work as editor on The Intervention Anthology (see my review) but she has a distinguished bibliography in her own right.
- The Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting was won by Cate Shortland for Episode 4 ‘The Letter’ of Deadline Gallipoli
- The Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting was won by Angus Cerini for The Bleeding Tree
- The Kenneth Slessor Poetry prize was won by Joanne Burns for her collection Brush
- The People’s Choice Award winner was won by Lisa Gorton for The Life of Houses (see my review)
Congratulations to all the authors, editors and publishers!
PS To see the shortlists for these awards, click here.
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
Congratulations to all the winners. Equally, congratulations to the many finalists: you are all winners in my book.
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By: Robyn Mundy on May 17, 2016
at 11:57 am
Yes, indeed, a quick look at the shortlists confirms that Australian writing is in very good shape!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 17, 2016
at 12:41 pm
Hi Lisa, Just catching up on all my blog reading & have only just come across this. It isn’t very obvious from their prize page, but Ellen van Neerven was joint winner with Bruce Pascoe (justifiably, in my very biased opinion!) – here’s the link: http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/2016-indigenous-writers-prize
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By: Jess White on May 25, 2016
at 10:10 pm
Goodness, that’s a bad mistake. You are quite right, I’ve looked it up and if I’d scrolled through enough pages I would have found it.
I’ll fix it up above, thanks for letting me know!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 25, 2016
at 11:28 pm