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The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer: Shortlist 2006
Judges
Chris Thompson (Convenor), Melanie Ostell and Wayne Macauley
By its very nature, this award attracts writing that is raw, imperfect and often still finding its feet as it develops towards a work that is ready to be published. This year's judging panel read 71 manuscripts, mostly full-length novels along with a number of short story collections and novellas. For the most part, we are on the lookout for works that engage the reader in terms of story, character, structure and style; for stories that resonate with a fresh approach and an original voice; for themes which are explored with subtlety and surprise without resorting to overstatement or didacticism. Above all, we are looking for a manuscript that, beyond the prestige and reward that comes with this prize, will most benefit from the opportunity of professional assistance in its continued development. From our pool of 71 entries, we have selected 3 that meet these criteria.
Shortlist
| AetherKate Cole-Adams
Aether is an engaging, well-written, intelligently structured novel that explores a character's struggle with her own uncertain and elusive memories. Awakening from a coma, the narrator embarks on an exploration of herself and her life and a search for the meaning of remembered moments and events as she gradually puts the pieces of her life back together. In doing so she both rediscovers and reclaims her 'self'. Aether is intriguing in its narrative and often vividly realised in its prose. It draws the reader into its fractured world with a style of writing that builds through its earlier slow burning chapters towards a strong second half and satisfying conclusion. |
| RohypnolAndrew Hutchinson
Rohypnol is a disturbing, white-knuckle ride into the lives of a group of self-centred, amoral young men who prey on unsuspecting young women out to party. With the aid of date-rape drugs, they lull them into a state where they can demean and defile them. But these guys are not merely irresponsible misogynists, they are the 'new punk' – nihilists without interest in or concern for any kind of future. But one night their partying results in a brutal murder that splinters the group and brings consequences to their actions. Rohypnol is a disquieting, shocking glimpse of a frightening world. It is an accomplished cautionary tale that surprises and unsettles the reader with its unexpected moments of humour. |
| Among The DeadChris Womersley Among The Dead begins in a classic crime-thriller, almost film-noir, style that gradually seduces the reader into a story that unfolds within a more surprisingly weird, gothic world. A young petty criminal with a bullet in his side and an older drug-addicted, disbarred doctor meet by coincidence in a low-life motel and embark on a journey that draws them together in an unlikely kinship as they both look for redemption and reinvention. Ultimately a tragic tale, Among The Dead is written with a real literary flair that manages to surprise us by going beyond its more predictable genre-bound beginnings in order to take us somewhere else entirely. | |
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