ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

It’s a nice Christmas present for the authors shortlisted for the just-announced Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards for 2017, and there are some interesting books for me to chase up, hopefully before the prize is announced on January 31st.

The shortlisted books in each category are:

Fiction

• Between a Wolf and a Dog (Georgia Blain, Scribe) See my review
• The Healing Party (Micheline Lee, Black Inc.), see my review
• Wood Green (Sean Rabin, Giramondo) See my review
• Waiting (Philip Salom, Puncher & Wattmann) See my review
• The Rules of Backyard Cricket (Jock Serong, Text) (crime fiction)
• The Love of a Bad Man (Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Scribe) (short stories)

Nonfiction

• Songs of a War Boy (Deng Adut & Ben Mckelvey, Hachette)
• The Hate Race (Maxine Beneba Clarke, Hachette)
• The Killing Season Uncut (Sarah Ferguson & Patricia Drum, MUP)
• Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru (Madeline Gleeson, NewSouth)
• Position Doubtful (Kim Mahood, Scribe) See my review
• The Fighter (Arnold Zable, Text)

Poetry

• Carrying the World (Maxine Beneba Clarke, Hachette)
• Painting Red Orchids (Eileen Chong, Pitt Street Poetry)
• Bull Days (Tina Giannoukos, Australian Scholarly Publishing)

Young adult

• When Michael Met Mina (Randa Abdel-Fattah, Pan)
• The Bone Sparrow (Zana Fraillon, Lothian)
• The Other Side of Summer (Emily Gale, Random House)

Drama

• Girl Shut Your Mouth (Gita Bezard, Black Swan State Theatre Company)
• Trigger Warning (Zoë Coombs Marr, Melbourne International Comedy Festival)
• The Drover’s Wife (Leah Purcell, Currency Press).

Each category winner receives $25,000 and is eligible for the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature. The winner of the People’s Choice Award will receive $2000.

For more information and to vote for the People’s Choice Award, visit the Wheeler Centre website here.