Media Release
Melbourne Writers Premier in the Shortlist
24 September 2004
A record number of entries were received for this year’s non-fiction category in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. 129 authors’ works were entered in this category – the highest figure ever.
This year’s finalists in the 2004 Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction category are all based in Melbourne. They are: Dancing with Strangers by Inga Clendinnen, Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities by Graeme Davison and Mark Peel’s The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty.
In The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction category, the three shortlisted titles were distinguished, according to the judges by the authors’ ambitious social analysis and confidence in challenging conventional literary forms. The shortlisted finalists in this section are: J.M. Coetzee for Elizabeth Costello, Annamarie Jagose for Slow Water and Malcolm Knox for A Private Man.
Past fiction winners included David Malouf (Antipodes, 1985) Amanda Lohrey (Camille’s Bread, 1996), Peter Carey (Illywhacker, 1986 and True History of the Kelly Gang, 2001) and Kate Grenville (Dark Places, 1995).
There are two new categories for this year’s Awards: the biennial Prize for Indigenous Writing and the biennial Prize for a First Book of History. The shortlisted authors for the Indigenious Writing category are Larissa Behrendt for Home, Vivienne Cleven for Her Sister’s Eye and Dennis McDermott for Dorothy’s Skin.
In the Village Roadshow Prize for Screen Writing category, the scripts for contemporary films Tom White by Daniel Keene and Cate Shortland’s Somersault are finalists along with Elizabeth Mars’ screenplay of the Rachel Ward’s film, Martha’s New Coat.
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are in their twentieth year and during the last two decades have expanded from five to ten prizes with total prize money of $180,000. The winner’s of this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards will be announced by the Deputy Premier John Thwaites MP at a dinner on Monday 18 October at Zinc, Federation Square.
Shortlist 2004
The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
Elizabeth Costello
by J.M. Coetzee
Knopf/Random House
Slow Water
by Annamarie Jagose
Vintage/Random House
A Private Man
by Malcolm Knox
Vintage/Random House
The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction
Dancing with Strangers
by Inga Clendinnen
Text Publishing
Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities
by Graeme Davison
Allen & Unwin
The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty
by Mark Peel
Cambridge University Press
The C J Dennis Prize for Poetry
Wolf Notes
by Judith Beveridge
Giramondo
The Imageless World
by Michael Brennan
Salt Publishing
The Sleep of a Learning Man
by Anthony Lawrence
Giramondo
The Louis Esson Prize for Drama
Falling Petals
by Ben Ellis
Playbox/Currency
Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America: A Drama in 30 Scenes
by Stephen Sewell
Playbox/Currency
Wonderlands
by Katherine Thomson
Currency
The Prize for Young Adult Fiction
Nights in the Sun
by Colin Bowles
Penguin Books Australia
Black Juice
by Margo Lanagan
Allen & Unwin
Boys of Blood & Bone
by David Metzenthen
Penguin Books Australia
The Prize for Indigenous Writing
Home
by Larissa Behrendt
University of Queensland Press
Her Sister’s Eye
by Vivienne Cleven
University of Queensland Press
Dorothy’s Skin
by Dennis McDermott
Five Islands Press
The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate
Fantasy Island
by James Boyce
from Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History
Black Inc
The Mood We Are In: Circa Australia Day 2004
by Barry Hill
Overland Magazine
Made in England: Australia’s British Inheritance
by David Malouf
Black Inc
The Village Roadshow Prize for Screen Writing
Tom White
by Daniel Keene
Rescued Films/Fandango Productions
Martha’s New Coat
by Elizabeth Mars
Newtown Films
Somersault
by Cate Shortland
Red Carpet Productions
The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer
You’ve Changed
by Shalini Akhil
Deadly Force
by Jarad W. Henry
Thai Died
by Angela Savage
The Prize for a First Book of History
Einstein’s Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics
by Robyn Arianrhod
University of Queensland Press
The Power of Speech: Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image
by James Curran
Melbourne University Publishing
Unearthed: The Aboriginal Tasmanians of Kangaroo Island
by Rebe Taylor
Wakefield Press
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