Updated 14/12/22 to include the winners in bold and some reviews.
Thanks to Amanda Curtin for the heads-up: these are the WA Premier’s Book Awards shortlists…
(These are the 2020 awards I think, even though now it’s 2021.)
The Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer ($15,000)
- Father of the Lost Boys by Yuot A. Alaak (Fremantle Press), see my review
- Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs (Scribe Publications), see my report of the Perth Festival event featuring this author and her book
- A Question of Colour by Pattie Lees and Adam C. Lees (Magabala Books), see my review
- We Can’t Say We Didn’t Know by Sophie McNeill (ABC Books: An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers),
on my TBR,see my review - The Salt Madonna by Catherine Noske (Pan Macmillan Australia), see Amanda’s *2, 2 and 2 interview with the author
The Premier’s Prize for Writing for Children ($15,000)
- How to Make a Bird – Written by Meg McKinlay and Illustrated by Matt Ottley (Walker Books Australia)
- Littlelight by Kelly Canby (Fremantle Press)
- Shirley Purdie: My Story, Ngaginybe Jarragbe by Shirley Purdie (Magabala Books)
- Across The Risen Sea by Bren MacDibble (Allen & Unwin)
- Willy-willy Wagtail: Tales from the Bush Mob by Helen Milroy (Magabala Books)
The Daisy Utemorrah Award for Unpublished Indigenous Junior and YA ($15,000 and a publishing contract with Magabala Books)
- Home is Calling – Natasha Leslie
- Dirran – Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler
The Western Australian Writer’s Fellowship ($60,000)
- Amanda Bridgeman
- Donna Mazza, see Amanda’s *2, 2 and 2 interview with Donna and my reviews of her novels
- Jon Doust, see Amanda’s *2, 2 and 2 interview with Jon and my reviews of his trilogy
- Madelaine Dickie, see my reviews of her novels
- Sisonke Msimang, see my reviews of her non-fiction
I am glad I’m not on the judging panel for this fellowship… I know the works of four of these five authors and I could not possibly choose between them!
The full press release from the State Library of Western Australia here.
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
It’s very exciting to see these announced! Thanks for posting, Lisa :-) (You’re right: they’re called the 2020 awards because the books shortlisted are 2020 books. It gets a bit confusing when it comes to the Fellowship, which is unconnected to any particular book!)
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By: amandacurtin on June 17, 2021
at 2:24 pm
LOL Amanda, I’ve just noticed that I squashed the bookcover images when I reduced the image files to fit!
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By: Lisa Hill on June 17, 2021
at 3:53 pm
It’s interesting to me that WA has decided to do something very different with their awards in recent year.
I just saw Madelaine Dickie post on Instagram that she’d been shortlisted – she pitched a “gritty” novel, she said! That’s all I know.
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By: whisperinggums on June 17, 2021
at 5:42 pm
I didn’t know you played in the Instagram sandpit!
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By: Lisa Hill on June 17, 2021
at 6:32 pm
I go where my daughter goes and she went to Instagram so I did too a few years ago.
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By: whisperinggums on June 17, 2021
at 8:28 pm
I don’t know how you manage it, I have enough trouble keeping up with Twitter. (I don’t really bother with Facebook, and I’ll abandon it altogether as I did before, once the pandemic is over).
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By: Lisa Hill on June 17, 2021
at 10:15 pm
Well I rarely do Twitter of Facebook. Just Instagram, the family Telegram and WhatsApp with neighbours and friend groups. I see pretty much no nastiness on Instagram but that may be my feed.
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By: whisperinggums on June 18, 2021
at 2:07 pm
I think the Spouse does family stuff with Messenger.
Tailoring which one to use seems like the best thing to do.
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By: Lisa Hill on June 18, 2021
at 2:14 pm
So many places to share with families and friends!
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By: whisperinggums on June 18, 2021
at 2:31 pm
Two prizelists in short order. Did you make the images yourself? Very ambitious of you!
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By: buriedinprint on June 22, 2021
at 2:30 am
LOL The images came with the press release!
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By: Lisa Hill on June 22, 2021
at 8:16 am