Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer: Winner & Shortlist 2009

Judges: Liam Davison (convenor), Nathan Hollier and Rose Michael

Judges' comments

The panel assessed a record 126 manuscripts for this year's Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer. The judges were impressed by the overall quality of the submissions and noted their diverse range of form and style. While novels for adults across a range of genres made up the bulk of the list, short fiction, young adult fiction, children's books and memoirs were also well represented. Thematically, there was a noticeable engagement with environmental issues and with the shifting balance of global power. The judges were pleased that to some extent the final shortlist reflects the diversity of the entries.

Winner

The winner of the 2009 Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer is:

• 'Sufficient Grace'
  Amy Espeseth

Shortlist

	Sufficient Grace - WINNER Amy Espeseth Set in a cloistered community of Scandinavian Pentecostals in the icy wilds of Wisconsin, this powerful, elemental novel presents a fully realised world of a family turned in upon itself. It captures the harsh beauty of the unforgiving natural world in prose that is charged with biblical cadences and authority. Attuned to the rhythms of the natural and liturgical cycles, the novel recounts an utterly convincing and heart-rending story of lost innocence and the quest for absolution.
	Like Being a Wife Catherine Harris This deceptively spare and understated collection of linked short stories explores the subtle compromises and negotiations of family, work and friendship with wry humour and insight. Individual stories reveal quiet moments of epiphany that are true to their period and hint tellingly at events that occur off the page. Together, the stories achieve a cumulative strength and present a remarkably consistent fictional world that resonates long after reading. The self-deprecating irony of the voice belies the emotive power that underpins the stories.
	The Sunlit Zone Lisa Jacobson The Sunlit Zone is a moving elegy of love and loss presented in the form of a speculative verse novel. The judges admired both its technical proficiency and the precocity of its language but were most impressed by its narrative sweep and the compelling family dynamic that drives it. The novel transports the reader to a haunted future, minting new words for a new world while remaining firmly connected to the familiar. It is a risk-taking work of rare imaginative power.