The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer: Shortlist 2003

Judges report

This is the inaugural year of the Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer. In spite of a tight deadline, the category received a hundred and twenty-four entries, the greatest number in the history of the Premier's Literary awards. We commend the Premier and Arts Minister for having the foresight to support developing and emerging writers in Victoria.

We were absolutely delighted to get a snapshot of the state of writing in Victoria, with the category attracting many manuscripts of very strong potential. We note that the entries came from all over Victoria, with a wide diversity of backgrounds and life experiences reflected in the writing. The genres represented included fiction, memoir, short stories, history and poetry.

In developing a shortlist, we based our determination on artistic and literary merit, and the potential for publication. We are conscious of the fact that, as unpublished works, these still require assistance in the form of editing or mentorship, and we recommend that the winner take advantage of the twenty hours of such assistance underwritten by the Victorian Writers' Centre. We also wish to encourage the many entrants not shortlisted to persevere in this highly challenging, sometimes lonely, occasionally frustrating, but frequently rewarding craft.

Shortlist
Lucia's Story by Enza Gandolfo
The stories of two very different Lucias are told in this insightful and vivid chronicle of the Rotelli family. Lucia the younger, an Australian-born woman of Sicilian descent, ponders the reasons she cannot carry a pregnancy to full term. Her probing of family history reveals a grandmother - the elder Lucia - who cursed her daughter and set in train a series of events that was to mark later generations. This is a family whose ties tear each other apart just as surely as they bind. Strong characterisation marks this work; the Rotellis are all too human with their foibles and neediness and small-mindedness. The idea of inherited destinies, and the way in which the past insinuates itself into the present, form a powerful backdrop to this evocative novel.

The Cultivator by Carrie Tiffany
Set in the Mallee wheat belt of the 1930s, this novel captures, in beautifully assured detail, the hope and disappointment of an era. The ecological catastrophe that follows on the heels of an initial optimism about the future of scientific agricultural techniques is viewed through the eyes of a young wife, whose husband's grandiose vision gradually destroys a community. Against a setting of rural hardship and imminent war, The Cultivator explores the theme of determined human imposition on the landscape, something which was fated to end in disaster. In the hands of an accomplished storyteller who has created memorable characters, this idea finds strong resonance with contemporary Australia.

Pickle to Pie by Glenice Whitting, aka Penny White
This poignant novel tells a sad story without ever falling into sentimentality. A grandson of German immigrants struggles to make the transition from his inherited culture to that of Australia (a process symbolised by the novel's title). The themes his life story encompasses are wide-ranging: the sins of the father, the unknowableness of the past, the disturbing echoes of suicide through a family, the true nature of personal strength, and the irrational appeal of Hitler, something about which the narrator is powerfully articulate, though he paradoxically understands little. This is a well-controlled, mature and understated work that covers a lot of territory in a short space: the author knows that some things are stronger for being left unsaid.