Media Release
2005 Premier's Literary Awards Shortlist Announced
16 September 2005
The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards are among Australia's richest awards for writers, offering a total prize pool of $180,000.
For 21 years, the Awards have recognised both emerging and established writers, honouring Australian literature, ideas and innovation.
This year’s Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction surpassed last year’s record number of entries. In recognition of the extraordinary range and diversity of entries in this category, an extended shortlist of five has been announced. The shortlist spans travel memoirs, art and social history, cultural and personal exploration. Works by Robert Dessaix, Helen Garner and Greg Dening are included on this shortlist.
According to the judges of the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction the impressive range and quality of entries ‘reflected the current vibrant state of Australian fiction with impressive new works from both established and emerging writers.’ Shortlisted authors are Gail Jones for Sixty Lights, Sonya Hartnett for Surrender and Ian Townsend for Affection.
The biennial Prize for Science Writing highlights the diversity also evident in this area of Australian publishing, with shortlisted works including Stem Cells by Elizabeth Finkel and Astonishing Animals by Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten.
The nature of the Italian immigrant experience is told in fiction and memoir in titles shortlisted for the inaugural Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia, while the Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer has once again unearthed impressive talent. Of Anita Punton’s shortlisted novel, The Timeball Philosophers, the judges wrote, ‘ it is a rich , funny, visceral character-based work set amongst the filth and stinking mud of nineteenth century Williamstown’.
Shortlist 2005 >
The winners of the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2005 will be announced by the Hon. Steve Bracks MP, Premier of Victoria on Monday 17 October 2005, at a special dinner at Zinc, Federation Square. The evening will be hosted by celebrated actor William McInnes and award winning author Inga Clendinnen will give the keynote address.
The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards dinner will be held on Monday 17 October, 7.15pm at Zinc, Federation Square. Tickets: $90.00 / $85.00. Bookings can be made by phone on 8664 7016 or email bookings@slv.vic.gov.au
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are administered by the State Library of Victoria.
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